Top Ten Tuesday: Trends

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Today's is an awesome topic; trends you'd like to see more or less of in fiction. I've gone for 5 of each.

LESS: Paranormal romance. I actually LIKE paranormal romance quite a lot, but the experiences I've had recently going into bookshops looking for YA novels and finding dozens of shelves of paranormal with barely anything else make me want to scream.

I still like: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl - Shakes things up with the girl being the supernatural one and has LINK, the coolest supporting character ever.

MORE: Mermaids. Okay, they technically count as paranormal romance, but at least they're nowhere near as overdone as werewolves, vampires or fairies.

Example: Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs - An absolute blast, huge fun to read and brilliant world-building.


LESS: Vampires - I know they come under paranormal romance but they get their own category because sweet LORD, they're overdone. Cool bloodsuckers (even sparkly ones) are fine, but enough already, people!

I still like: By Midnight by Mia James - With an interesting take on the vamp mythos and wonderful descriptions of London, this is worth checking out even if you ARE bored of the fanged ones.

MORE: Strange and scary monsters - Ditch the romance, ditch the usual suspects, give me some yetis, kraken, lamia, and so on, and you've got me interested in the paranormal again.

Example: The Monstrumologist: Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey - After a good start to the series with The Terror Beneath, Yancey hit gold with the 2nd in the sequence. Ultra-bloody and seriously exciting, this is a great book which will have young teenage boys reading faster than ever before - and then desperately checking Amazon to see whether book 3, the Isle of Blood, is out yet. (2 months or so to go as we speak.)


LESS: Series which go on and on and on... Gossip Girl, I'm looking at YOU in particular, but hardly the only offender. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels for adults have also hit the stage where it seems to be "lather, rinse, repeat" on the plots far too often.

I still like: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Man From Hell by Barrie Roberts - Even though the Further Adventures are hit and miss in quality, and as a series I honestly think they could have done with choosing the best three or four of Conan Doyle's many imitators rather than releasing over a dozen, Titan have found a couple of real gems to republish. Chief amongst them is The Man From Hell - by far my favourite non-ACD Holmes story, very Hound of the Baskervilles-ish and really authentic sounding.

MORE: Reboots! I would absolutely love to see more of the classics given a fresh spin with modern day settings. I find this type of storytelling really interesting in the hands of a talented author.

Example: Tarzan by Andy Briggs - The jungle wild man in modern day Africa. Fantastic, whether or not you've read the original.


LESS: Rich kids hanging out in New York or other major cities. I loved Gossip Girl but as mentioned above, it paled quickly, and most of the imitators have done nothing for me.

I still like: Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar - Okay, I've said twice that it paled quickly, but the first one was AWESOME - practically defining 'guilty pleasure'. Ultra-trashy, completely in your face, but never less than riotously entertaining.

MORE: Foreign cultures (as in not British or American) - I'm loving some of the books I've been reading set in Asia recently, in particular.

Example: A Beautiful Lie by Irfan Master - Wonderful novel which does a great job of portraying India in 1947 as Partition draws near.


LESS: Dystopian future. It works really well occasionally but there's just been too much I've read recently which has left me totally cold.

I still like: Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - I still haven't made my mind up as to whether I like Mockingjay, but the first in this trilogy is outstanding.

MORE: British villages and small towns. I've loved these kind of books since first reading Miss Read's fantastic Thrush Green and Fairacre series for adults, and it's great to see a few kids' books of a similar nature.

Example: For The Record by Ellie Irving - British strangeness at its finest. Completely adorable characters.