Discussion posts are some of my favourite posts to read. New ideas get shared that way, or old ideas are revisited and given a new spin. And of course, I get to be my opinionated self as I hoist my views upon others, while pretending to be objective. Or maybe not. I do welcome alternate views and I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
Lately, I’ve noticed that I barely glance at blurbs anymore before deciding if I want to read a book. I mean, I do read synopses for the most part before adding a book to my TBR list but after that I forget. By the time I get round to picking up a book based on my TBR list, I don’t bother reading the blurb anymore and just dive in.
At other times, I pick up a book because I’ve seen it around a lot and the cover looks enticing. If I do want to make sure if it is a book for me, I usually end up scanning it with the Goodreads app on my phone and read all the info I need there.
Then there are those times when I have one whole pile of books on my desk that I picked out at the library. I line them up according to their due dates and mostly read them in that order. If I looked at the blurb before borrowing a book, once again I don’t remember by the time I pick up a particular book anymore.
In a way, I like diving into a book for which I have no idea what to expect. Besides, I did engage in some pre-screening, so there must be something about those books that drew me to them. Blurbs, while good in telling readers enough to decide if they might like a book also rob us of the unknown. It is the unknown that is exhilarating above all. That is why blurbs hardly matter to me right before I dive into a new book.
I must also confess that I buy most of my books online. Obviously it follows that I also read the descriptions of those books online. By the time those books reach me, I don’t think to look at the blurbs printed on the back or in the inner sleeves anymore.
Blurbs essentially are a marketing tool. Just like book covers. If I don’t enter a bookstore to physically pick out a book myself, then the printed blurb has no more impact on me. On the flip side, I do obtain the bulk of my books from the library but as I said, I either already have books I borrow on my TBR list or I consult Goodreads.
Do blurbs matter to you? How much of an impact do blurbs have on you when you’re deciding if you want to read a particular book?
I’m the total opposite. I read the online synopsis, and the blurb on the book. I don’t like reading a book and not know anything about it before hand. It totally takes me out of the story and I take too long to get into it.
I like starting off a book not knowing anything at all, besides the genre or theme. But I can definitely see how knowing beforehand through blurbs makes it a lot faster to get into a book.
For me, blurbs matter when I am unfamiliar with the writer. They can help me to decide if I’m on the fence about reading or not. But if I have already decided that I want to read the book because I like a writer’s previous work or if I am intrigued by the subject matter/story/characters, then the blurbs won’t really make a difference.
Oh yes, if an author I like wrote a book, I will read it for sure. Although, before I started blogging about books, I had a horrible memory of the authors’ names, so I’m used to picking books according to themes. It’s great though, that blurbs still get a lot of love, even when information about most books can be found on the Internet.
This is interesting! I don’t feel like I use blurbs as much (or at all) anymore either…since becoming a book blogger. I pretty much only look at the blurb if it’s a book that hasn’t been released yet, because there won’t be as many reviews or ratings to go on. But usually I base my reading decisions on what other people I trust are reading, regardless of what it’s about or what genre it is. So usually the blurb is the last thing I look at on a book’s Goodreads page! Great discussion post :)
Wow! You’re way far out of my comfort zone! I do need to have at least a semblance of what a book is about before I’ll read it. I don’t need details but if the whole book happens on a ship, or involves angels, etc, I do want to know that, so I can decide if I’m in the mood for that book.
I rarely read actual blurbs on books nowadays – I just end up going on Goodreads and reading the blurbs there, haha. Much like you, I feel like I already have books picked out (again, from Goodreads) before I go to the library or a bookstore, so I’m more focused on those books rather than any other “new” books that I see. If a cover looks really interesting though, I’ll stop to read the blurb. :)
Yeah, blurbs still do matter when a book I’ve never heard of catches my eye. But yay! Glad to know I’m not the only one who relies so heavily on Goodreads. I’d be lost without it.
Like you, I read the blurb/synopsis to decide if I really want to put this book on my TBR list. I have to know what I’m getting into here! :) I don’t think the cover is enough for me to put it on my TBR because I’ve been fooled by bad books with really pretty covers. As for books that I’ve seen around A LOT, I will still need to read the blurb before I add it. Mainly because I’ve been let down by a bunch of hyped books before. :
But some covers are just so pretty, you HAVE to hold those books with your own two hands! HAHAHA. But yeah, I am careful too since I know covers and content are not the same.
Y’know, I’ve been thinking about this lately and I’ve gone through a whole shift when it comes to reading books. Before I was a little OCD when it came to reading blurbs and I’d read every word. But then I came on Goodreads and the discovery of tons of books kind of gradually pulled this habit apart.
More times than I can count, I’ve read a book’s blurb and then started reading the book which pretty much leads to me knowing what’s going to happen and taking the fund out of it. We all know those blurbs. I don’t like them at all.
When it comes to the uber popular titles like The Hunger Games, The Fault in Our Stars, Shadow and Bone, Throne of Glass and The Raven Boys. I never read the blurbs and just knew a couple of vague things about them before reading them. Then I realized that I like it this way. I liked it a lot. However, this also comes with a risk that I’ll be spoiled for a book that I’ve been wanting to read for a long time so it becomes a constant struggle to try and avoid that. I’ve never been much of a person who reads a book the week it comes out because I hardly feel the urge to do that. I recently read Split Second (which I wanted to read on the day it came out) and I still waited for more than a week to really start reading it. This is one of the rarest occasions.
In the end, yes there are many factors beside the blurb that makes me want to read a book. Sometimes the title is enough (Fangirl, anyone?) and other times, skimming the blurb of a book, catching a couple of interesting words in it is enough to make me want to read a book. Also, I only ever read the blurbs of sequels in a series if the wait is excruciating (like with Heir of Fire). So yes, I don’t blurbs matter all that much except in some cases like debuts and books that are pretty unknown to me.
Goodreads is such a splendid place, isn’t it? :D
Like I replied Chiara, I read the blurb of The Statistical Probability of First Love after I was done reading the book to see how the blurb and book matched up. I felt like I reread the entire book after reading the blurb. Total relief then that I didn’t read the blurb first. I would’ve been very disappointed at the end.
I do enjoy reading books as soon as they come out but I rarely do so because I’ve so many other books I want to read first and so many other things to do too, so thankfully that helps to build the element of surprises for those books again after some time.
Oh, blurbs of sequels! No, those I generally do not read. I’m always afraid of spoilers. Haha. For books that are first in series or standalones though, I don’t really shun blurbs. They’re just not my priorities anymore.
Blurbs matter most to me when I see a book for the first time, and am deciding whether or not I want to read it. And even then, I usually just scan it anyway. Like you said, sometimes the blurb can take away the exciting unknown-ness that is inherent in a novel. And I love that unknown-ness! It makes reading the book and even more awesome experience.
Sometimes, however, the blurb needs to be read to put the book in context. I’ll be reading a novel, and things aren’t making sense. SO I’ll go read the blurb again, and it’ll put things into perspective. Granted, that doesn’t usually happen very often because in all reality you shouldn’t have to red a blurb to understand the context of a novel.
I actually really like reading blurbs about halfway through a novel; and also when I finish reading the novel. I like to see how they compare. This obviously doesn’t happen with ebooks, but when I have a physical book, I often find myself turning the book around to read the blurb numerous times. And often, I am not entirely sure why I do that, haha.
I do like blurbs, but they have to be a certain kind. If it’s too descriptive it can ruin the book, if it’s too long I cannot be bothered reading it, and if it’s too vague it annoys me. Blurbs are an art-form, haha.
What you do with your library books is exactly what I do! I have the ones that need to be returned first on the top of the pile, and the ones that need to be returned last on the bottom. I usually read them in that order unless one of the newer ones is dying to be read. :D
True that. It does happen a lot that I come across books I didn’t previously hear of before. When that is the case blurbs are useful. But I still am more inclined to look up such books on Goodreads somehow. Unless my phone’s battery is running low. I supposed that that only decreases my unhealthy dependence on technology. Oh well.
I used to compare blurbs and the actual books in the past. Most of the time I felt the blurbs gave too much away or somehow made the books sound different from what they were, so I’ve fallen out of that habit.
But after reading your comment, I went back to look at the last book I finished. That would be The Statistical Probability of First Love. That blurb printed on the inside jacket sums up the entire book! No flippin’ surprises at all! I felt like I had read the book a second time after reading the blurb, so uhm, meh. But maybe I felt that way because the entire book didn’t excite me anyway.
Yay to the organisation of library books! :D But I have so many right now, I fear I won’t reach the end of the line-up :( I might need to bump up the ones that I absolutely want to read. Then again, maybe I should just wake up earlier in the mornings and spend all my time before lunch reading. That might solve this problem. Haha.
I’m pretty the much the same as you. I will have looked at the blurb once upon a time, but by the time I get around to reading the book it’s just a far-off memory. But I enjoy not knowing what will come because it just makes it more to find out along with your characters. Plus sometimes blurbs make you expect a whole different book than the one you will be getting.
Yes! When a blurb has me expecting something grander out of a book I always feel very frustrated and cheated when things don’t turn out to be that way. Another reason it’s sometimes safer to go into a book not knowing anything at all :) But I do want to know if a book is up my alley before I commit time to reading is, so I do read blurbs of books I haven’t heard of before. I always take weeks, if not months between buying and reading a book anyway, so far-off memories, like you said, serve me well in there end.
I’m the same way. I think they’re still useful because sometimes I do want to know. Especially since I have bought the wrong book at the store due to similar titles/covers. Now, with some books? Who cares what it’s about. I like the cover/title and people are giving it good reviews. Gimme. But when books have a relatively vague titles like Teardrop, Seraphina, Ink, etc. I want to know what I’m getting into. Those titles kind of tell me nothing. But, I do agree that they aren’t always important as my mind likes to make them out to be. Interesting post!
I totally forgot about similar book covers! Yes, in those cases blurbs do turn out to be quite essential. I’ve had that happen to me too, where I picked up a book a friend recommended. I couldn’t remember the title butI did have a vague idea of what the cover looked like. Then I found a book that looked rather like it but after reading the blurb, I knew I had the wrong book. When it comes to vague titles, I do look up the synopses or read the blurbs when I come across those books at bookstores or the library. Once in a while though, I just look at their top shelves on Goodreads. I’ve found those to be pretty reliable in deciding if I might be interested in a book. Say, if many shelved a book under horror, I already know it’s not a book for me, so I don’t bother finding out more.