The Book Snob Book Tag

I spotted this tag on another book blog some time ago and had saved the questions, but never got around to posting. I thought it’d be fun to do a few more book tags and share a little more about my reading life. Credit goes to Tia over at Genres and Journals for this tag.

1. Adaptation Snob: Do you always read the book before watching the film/ TV show?
If I’m aware of the book beforehand, I do try to read the source material first, yes. I don’t always get to it, and I’ll often read the book afterwards, and it usually leads to me liking the source material far more than the adaptation. There are actually a handful of film and TV adaptations that I have held off on watching until I can read the book.

2. Format Snob: You can only choose 1 format in which to read books for the rest of your life. Which one do you choose: physical books, eBooks, or audiobooks?
This is very hard for me because my eyesight has been getting really bad lately. I’m still going to say physical books, because I love the tactile feeling of turning pages and collecting beautiful book editions. HOWEVER I am very partial to ebooks, as I can adjust the font size and highlight passes that I like or want to notate guilt free. Audiobooks on the other hand I don’t care if I ever listen to another one again, my attention span is too short for all that anyway.

3. Ship Snob: Would you date or marry a non-reader?
I would and I have, twice actually. Regrettably, a man that reads is actually kind of difficult. I’ve had some success getting my current husband to read a few books, though his number one hobby will always be video games. He does play visual novels however and plenty of story heavy games, so I take what I can get ha.

4. Genre Snob: You have to ditch one genre – never to be read again for the rest of your life. Which one do you ditch?
This is a hard toss up for me between self-help and paranormal romance, but I decided on self-help. You know the kinds. I’ve read a few, some of the better ones being The Gift of Fear and The Five Love Languages. After those two, I’m not terribly interested in most self-help books, particularly ones detailing business or motivation. I have a few books on my shelf that technically fall under self-help but I wouldn’t be too broken up if I never got to reading them.

5. Uber Genre Snob: You can only choose to read from one genre for the rest of your life. Which genre do you choose?
This is very hard for me to answer because I read a lot of genres. However my first love will always be horror, and there are many subgenres within horror that I can read!

6. Community Snob: Which genre do you think receives the most snobbery from the bookish community?
Despite being a part of a community that is often snubbed, the horror reading community, I’m going to go ahead and say that the romance community gets the most flack. Romance historically was designated as literature for bored housewives and a cause of moral decay. Nowadays the genre is one of the most read in the world with huge publishing deals, tons of special editions, well recognized genre tropes, and a flourishing fan base!

Despite that though, there are a lot of people that still side eye romance readers as reading smut. Misogyny is also still quite present on social media with some creators roasting women for reading smutty romance, or (still) designating book reading as a woman only activity while men work out or play video games. When I think about the men in my own personal life, a fair number of them have been big fans of romantic stories in multiple forms, from books to manga to video games, but most are very shy about admitting it.

7. Snobbery Recipient: Have you ever been snubbed for something that you have been reading or for reading in general?
As noted previously, I’m a horror reader. I’m big on the indies, and I have read quite a few splatterpunk and extreme horror books, both of which are big targets for judgment and harassment. Also weirdly enough, the book that I have received the most flack for liking is Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw. I’m a big fan of Khaw’s writing and have enjoyed every one of the books I’ve picked up that they’ve written. Nothing But Blackened Teeth went viral some time ago because of the cover, and this book gets A LOT of hate in the horror book communitites that I’m a part of.