Earl Grey Books

It’s been a while since I did a tag, so I thought I’d jump on today and find out whether I’m a book snob or not with the Book Snob Tag!

Apparently, this was created by Flowers in the Brain (according to Sifa Elizabeth Reads), which no longer exists, but I saw Annemieke @ A Dance With Books do it and immediately knew I wanted to as well.

Like Annemieke said in her post, I wouldn’t consider myself a book snob because I think reading absolutely anything in any format at all is wonderful, but let’s see what the tag thinks!

Adaptation Snob: Do you always read the book before seeing the movie?

I try to, but it doesn’t always happen. I find it really hard to disconnect movies from books if I’ve seen it first, but it doesn’t affect me like that if I do it the opposite way. I don’t really know what that’s about, but that’s how brain works. On the other hand, there are some books I’m not interested in reading but the film does appeal to me.

Format Snob: You can only choose one format in which to read books for the rest of your life. Which do you choose: physical books, Ebooks or audiobooks?

For me this is easy—I love physical books. I do also really enjoy eBooks, but after staring at my Kindle for a while my eyes get kind of sore and that’s never fun. As for audiobooks, I love the idea of them but I don’t have the focus for them. But I’m always going to love physical books in the most.

Ship Snob: Would you date or marry a non-reader?

I have dated non-readers in the past, and it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. But my current partner is a reader and one of my favourite things to do with him is to just sit and read together. That being said, he reads mostly non-fiction about international relations and things so our genres never crossover.

Genre Snob: You have to ditch one genre – never to be read again in your life, which do you ditch?

I was going to say horror, but I’ve never read anything horror before so it feels like a cop-out. Instead, I’m going to say sci-fi—while I do enjoy it, I tend to like sci-fi movies or TV a lot more so I think I could just switch to that.

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 easy. ROMANCE. I primarily read romance these days anyway because it brings me a lot of joy and I enjoy the different tropes and authors in the genre. I’m entirely basing this on the assumption that we get to read sub-genres within that, because then I’m totally covered with fantasy as well.

Community Snob: which genre do you think receives the most snobbery from the bookish community?

I have a few because I couldn’t just pick one. I know that kind of complicates the question, but I couldn’t decide. So first up, middle-grade and YA—there’s been a lot of articles over the years judging adults who read YA, and I’ve seen some people label both genres as ‘childish’. For me, I think the mark of a good MG or YA is that you can enjoy it no matter what age you are. You want to reread The Chronicles of Narnia every few years because it reminds me of your childhood? You love the magic and joy in children’s books? Nothing makes you happier than a good YA fantasy? If it makes you happy, who cares?

And then the other genre is romance. I know that romance is kind of having a moment lately, but there’s still a lot of snobbery about it. Just last month, I saw a bunch of people discuss why romance ‘didn’t really count as reading’ and how fantasy was the only worthwhile genre. Fantasy is great, but that doesn’t make romance, or any other genre, any less valid.

My question with this is, why does it matter to you what anyone else reads?

Snobbery Recipient: Have you ever been snubbed for something that you have been reading or for reading in general?

So you can probably already guess that my answer is going to be yes. I love MG, YA and romance so I’ve definitely experienced that snobbery multiple times. I know a lot of people think reading is a boring hobby, or that books are ‘dying out’ which I mean they’re welcome to think that.

Reading has always made me happy. It’s something that bought me a lot of comfort as an extremely shy kid, and it continues to bring me comfort as an adult.

Well, there’s the tag! I think this probably shows that I’m a bit of a book snob, but honestly, if you enjoy what you’re reading then who cares what anyone else thinks!