[2018] Voting for 7th Mini-Poll

[Jillian]

Nicole, I voted against the librarian prompt since it specifics "local librarian" so I could not use any of the lists you suggested.

[Jackie, Solstitial Mod]

We had the "recommended by a librarian" prompt on Popsugar this year. It didn't work out well for me. I had to ditch two recommended books because they were so bad before I got to one that I could at least finish. I just don't think librarians are all that much better at recommending books than anyone else is. I certainly don't want to deal with that nonsense again next year, especially not with the added caveat of *local* librarian. Maybe if you read mainly buzzy lit fic books this is an easy prompt, but it did not work for me.

[Nicole]

Jillian wrote: "Nicole, I voted against the librarian prompt since it specifics "local librarian" so I could not use any of the lists you suggested."

I guess I should have used my reading skills a bit more before I put those links in the post. I didn't pay attention to the "local" part, but you could still check out your town's library or a close library that could be considered to be in your area. I don't have any preferences either way as to if this one makes it or not, but I guess we'll have to narrow it down a bit if it does. Thanks for pointing that out to me!

[Jillian]

My local librarians are not very friendly so I can barely stand to have them check out my books (I live in a very rural remote area so there are not a lot of local places to pick from). I really don't want to get recommendations from them.

[Marta]

Francesca wrote: "seriously, you don't see books featuring mainly men being referred to as 'dick-lit' or 'dude-lit' do you?"
I totally have a dude-lit shelf.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

[Marta]

I am not a fan of chick-lit. I tried two, both for book club, and enjoyed one of them, it was funny and fluffy. The other (Eat, Pray, Love) went unfinished. I did not dislike it - I was just done with it. Overall it can be fun occasionally but only rarely and if well written. They tend to be repetitive in the theme and style.

[°~Amy~°]

Nicole wrote: "if people just think outside the box a bit, I think it would be easier to find books that fit prompts you're not sure about. "

Some people will "think outside the box" if it gets chosen but for voting purposes we look for topics that can be fulfilled as is without having to expand on it. This particular box specifically said YOUR LOCAL librarian so that is how we are viewing it for voting. If it said A librarian in general, we would be considering it in that broader sense.

[Jill]

Nicole wrote: "I didn't vote for it, because I know a lot of people in this group have often mentioned that they don't like books that someone else has to recommend to them, but it seems like a lot of people are ..."

Can't seem to find anything like that in the UK.

[Nicole]

Again, as I mentioned earlier, I did miss the "local" library part, which was obviously a huge oversight on my part. It's too bad that some people don't have local libraries or don't have decent librarians. And, I totally get what you were saying, Amy, about trying to not have to stretch a topic to fit your purposes. The local part makes that a lot trickier. And, as we've seen, a lot of people just want to whittle down their TBR, which could be more difficult to do if you have to add a book from a librarian recommendation, local or otherwise.

I really think, from all the discussion I've heard, and the fact that a similar prompt was on the Popsugar challenge this year (I know many people here do both), that this suggestion won't make it, so this will all be a moot point. If our discussion proves, once again, to be completely different than the final choices, I guess we'll all figure out a way to make it work or use a wild card for it. 2018 will be my first year to participate in the challenge, so I don't know the details of the wild card, but I'm sure I'll figure it out when we get there.

[Perri]

Nicole wrote: "Again, as I mentioned earlier, I did miss the "local" library part, which was obviously a huge oversight on my part. It's too bad that some people don't have local libraries or don't have decent li..."

I know! This seems like an episode from Parks and Rec. Makes me grateful all the more for my fantastic library and friendly, helpful librarians!

[Rachel]

Here's a question -- is there anything to specify that "chick lit" must be romance? I saw a few comments earlier on about people not enjoying it because they don't like romance, but I have many books on my list that are labelled as chick-lit that do not seem to be romances at all. For example, I just finished reading Keepsake, which is primarily a family story. There are also many books by authors like Kristin Hannah, and I've even seen Jodi Picoult tagged as chick lit. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding what the genre means, but I don't think it necessarily needs to be romance books or even heavy on the romantic elements.

[Zaz]

Nicole > the wild card is just changing a prompt you really dislike (or a prompt you find too complicated) in a free read.


The "local" prompts are usually very annoying for me but for a librarian I could just use a book that the library put in display. I agree that depending the librarian, the recommendations could be terrible (I usually only check their choices for picture books and graphic novels). Anyway, it's complicated for people who don't use/have a library, so it'll probably end in many bottoms.

If the Clue wins, I'd like to see it extended to the title to have more choices. I could probably use the Lunar Chronicles graphic novels for this one (gun for the 1st, rope for the 2nd).

[Sophie]

I agree that extending the clues to the titles would be easier!

[Jill]

As the vote time has been shortened, I think the results will be less of a surprise, as the regular posters will have voted early, and others who don't visit the site so often will assume they have plenty of time. We shall see.

[Laura, Celestial Sphere Mod]

Rachel, my social worker side may show a little but I'm sure the chick-lit stereotype is related to the fact that obviously if it's "chick" related then it has to be romantic. It's a bit of a sexist stereotype. Personally, I don't think it's a necessary element for the genre.

[Nicole]

I also think it would be a little less constraining to extend the Clue topic to titles. However, I did find a couple books on my Kindle (one I've already read, but one I haven't) that had Clue weapons in the picture on the cover, so I could make that one work without adding to my TBR.

I agree that chick-lit doesn't have to include romance, although I think many of them do. I just hate that term, and often stay away from books with that descriptor if I see it beforehand. I have found that I shouldn't do that, though, because I've found some books in bookstores or libraries (without investigating on Goodreads first) that I really enjoyed, and then when I went to log them into Goodreads, chick-lit was on of the top genres listed. I think it is a really broad topic that most people could find something decent in, but it's still probably not for everyone.

I'm so excited that tomorrow is results day! I thought it was still going to feel like an eternally long wait, but it really does seem like it's gone by fairly quickly, so that's awesome.