Top Ten Tuesday: top ten reasons contemporaries aren't my cup of tea

I came, I tried, I DNF’d after sixty pages. (put that in Latin for me sis) 

I don’t read contemporaries. 

(alright, calm down, pitchforks away)

I guess some people just have genres they don’t like. (Though I have to admit that I’m a bit peeved that it’s such a large genre.) but hey! At least I have reasons for not liking them. And since this week’s Top Ten Tuesday was supposed to be about ten floofy summery contemporaries here’s my ten reasons why I don’t read contemporaries.

Note From the Editor: Hello, I am sis. I can do the Latin thing. Can we do Greek instead? Let's try... ουτοι λογοι οι αιτιοι του τελους του νου. It is pronounced like oi logoi oi aitioi tou telous tou nou. I'm going for "Those words are guilty for the end of my mind." Now, I am only learning, so if any of y'all are greek geeks please go easy on me.

I’m an escapism reader: No shame there. Have you seen the world lately? It sucks. And, I will personally fight anyone who says escapism isn’t the ‘right way to read’. I’ll lose, but it’s the thought that counts. So right from the get-go I’m already bound to dislike contemporaries. They just don’t do it for my escapism soul.

I don’t do floof: I am too easily bored for this sugar-coated nonsense. At least 50% of contemporaries are romances. I can’t stand romances when they’re surrounded by dragons and evil sorcerers, much less when there’s nothing to distract me from the stupidity. Floof is just dull to me. Sure, every once in a while, I’m all for a book that doesn’t threaten to kill everyone. But, lazy summer chick lits are a whole new level of unthreatening. But i guess, I kind of understand why people think romances are cute. 

When they are serious . . . well: the blurb will do something along the lines of ‘and then so-and-so must put their life back together after horrific-abuse/loss of parent or sibling/some near death experience. Meanwhile I’m over in the corner like ‘that got dark real fast’. Look Y’all, if I wanted to read about that crap, I’d read the news.

There are no Dragons: or anything really. Honestly once magical realism was introduced I see absolutely no reason why contemporaries have to be set in magicless, plotless, reality. You guys do realize that character driven doesn’t mean you can’t have a plot or an interesting setting, right? Just a thought.

I’m a series kind of gal: I don’t know where this strange dislike of series has come from. I love returning to the world and the characters after a few days or (regrettably) a few years without them. Personally, I love it. Well, cliffhangers don’t count; they’re evil in every genre. Contemporaries, as a byproduct of them being rather fluffy, don’t exactly boast a lot of overarching stories. They’re more sit down and chill books instead of epic romps. Still, that’s a very specific dislike; so I won’t hold it against contemporaries.

Is it just me or does contemporary feel like a Miscellaneous genre: I feel like when the contemporary genre was invented it went something like this.

"well, it’s not a mystery or a fantasy or a historical fiction or anything really . . .  forget it! it’s just a whole new genre."

Apparently, the poor guy wasn’t paid enough for that crap. Basically, for me at least, Contemporaries are the bare minimum of story. They’re a narrative without anything interesting in them! No dragons or wizards or grand quests or mind boggling mysteries! Just people being people. Hey, if that’s what you like, fine! But it isn’t my cup of tea.

They ask questions I don’t care about: Look, I get that contemporaries are character driven and all about real people asking ‘real questions’ and going through real situations. Asking questions, for example:  Who am I? What should I do with my life? Will I ever be loved? Etc. etc. But, if that sounds too deep to read, have no fear. These huge questions are invariably and unrealistically solved/understood after a few days of hard core moping. *Yawn.* I feel that these questions are stupid. Mostly because I don’t care. I guess if these kind of books make you think then... Yay! But the moping and the yearning only succeed in annoying me.

Note From the Editor: I heard once that, in a beautiful song by Mercy Me, "You never know why you're alive until you know what you would die for." It would be hard to see what you would die for in a comfortable and quiet life, such as the settings in contemporary books. In my mind, it would be much easier in the prescience of, say, a dragon. Or an evil wizard. This is why "Character Driven" contemporary novels where nothing happens are confusing...

If I really wanted a story about real-life-struggles/romance/everything-else-in-contemporaries I would just watch a sitcom: it would take up a lot less of my time and I could double task while it plays. I don’t really have anything else to say about them. I would simply rather watch a well-written sitcom than read a two hundred page book about a girl’s summer vacation.

They’re marketed on their relatable-ness (yep, that’s totally a word) to me, they’re completely unrelatable:  I was homeschooled you guys! I was almost never in a public high school, I never dated in high school, I never went to school dance 

(*Gasp*)

 and all of those things make up 80% of contemporaries. I straight up don’t understand them. Even after I went to public school part time my last two years they still didn’t make sense. What, for example, even are cliques? I honestly can’t see them. Somebody tried to teach me how to recognize them and I honestly couldn’t. I’m clique blind! Still trying to figure out if that’s a good thing or not.

Y’all remember how I complained that books focused too much on being diverse instead of writing well written characters. Contemporaries are really, really bad about that: I honestly don’t care what color the character’s skin is, I just want ones that are well written. To reiterate, I totally understand why people want diverse characters, but that doesn’t mean you can just throw in a half-baked character and expect us to like them just because they’re gay or something. Being diverse isn’t a free pass for crappy characters, stop acting like it is.

I guess I understand why people like contemporaries. In fact, I can almost see the appeal of characters who don’t have superpowers or magic or elven lineage and who are strong anyway. But I’ll never like them. I’ll be too busy imagining a non-magician trying to hold their own in a group of other magicians to appreciate the smaller, more realistic achievements. 

Also my dragons, can't give up those.