Not The Target Audience

[John]

There are some well written and beloved books out in the world for which I am simply not the target audience. I'm sure you have all come across such a book, it isn't that there isn't anything wrong with it, it's just not your kind of book.

So I thought it might be interesting to discuss extreme examples of this. For instance, I was looking through my recommendations earlier today and came across the book Luck of the Dragon. The algorithm thought I might like it, and it appeared to have modern day dragons, so I went to the synopsis, where this became the fastest I have ever realized I was not the target audience for this book. The first line of the synopsis starts, "Luciana de Luca has a PhD in sass..."

What are your examples?

[Helen, I·ᴍ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪʙʀᴀʀʏ]

I currently have a German book in mine, I don't speak it!

[Amy]

Any story (often a romance, but not exclusively) where the female MC spends all her time getting bossed around and protected by the 'alpha male' hero. There are so many of them out there that clearly a lot of people find them very sexy/romantic, but it always rubs me the wrong way. Maybe because I come from a family where the women are nearly always in charge?! :D

[Elise]

GR's recommendation system is entirely useless. I usually ignore it. I think books in this category would be any books my grandmother would try to pawn off on me. They may be fine books, but not in a genre that interests me. Come to think of it, I don't remember the last time I cracked open a book that she loaned to me.

And she's mocked me once before for reading so many fantasy books, so I don't value her opinion too highly. :)

[Illusode]

Amy wrote: "Any story (often a romance, but not exclusively) where the female MC spends all her time getting bossed around and protected by the 'alpha male' hero. There are so many of them out there..."

So much this! I liked some urban fantasy books, and GoodReads flooded me with a bunch of tawdry domineering 'erotica' lauded as the height of romance.

Also, I try to steer clear of the Young Adult stuff; any mention of 'high school' will send me fleeing. :)

[Monica]

Gotta love the Goodreads algorithm in recommendation choices. After I read the classic story, The Pearl by John Steinbeck I received a GR recommendation "because you read The Pearl, you might also like the official Boy Scout Handbook...huh? No thank you. Guess it matched up the survival aspects between the two, and it did make me smile.

As far as other books (recommended by friends or within groups) I sometimes wonder why they think it's a good match for me. Extreme violence, horror...not for me...vampires, zombies...not for me. There are far too many books out there waiting to be explored to spend my time slogging through everything that comes my way.

My favorite Steinbeck quote:

“A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders.”

[Helen, I·ᴍ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪʙʀᴀʀʏ]

I'm still getting foreign titles, no idea what language they are.

[Jenna]

I hate when GR recommends me books based on books I rated 3 stars. Yeah, 3 stars means I liked it, but not enough to read similar books. I want to read books that are chosen based on books I really loved, and even then, the GR algorithm is not great.

[Angela]

I agree. I want recommendations for books I've rated 4 or 5 stars. The foreign language recommendations make me smile. I only know one language and if the algorithm was looking at what I was reading, it would see I haven't read any other language.

[Tnkw01]

I have decided to be more picky about my reading. I was looking at my "to-read" list and I had 865 books! So, I'm going through and deleting a few and I'm also going to put more books into the "did not finish" category instead of trying to slug my way through. With new fantasy coming out all the time, I'm also going to wait a bit before immediately putting books on my list. Try and give it time to be rated and reviewed by several people and all.