Discussion Post: How much do you really read in a book?

Hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllo there. I am sitting here going, hmmmm, what shall I do on the blog today – write that review finally for the deliciously spooky Hunting Prince Dracula? NO, BECAUSE BEING CAUGHT UP IS OVERRATED. Should I try and get caught up on the more than a few scrolls down a folder of tags? OF COURSE NOT BECAUSE THAT WOULD JUST BE SILLY? Should you oh, I don’t know, come up with an ingenious addition to one of those series you randomly created? NO NO NO BUT YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD DO, MANDY? DISCUSSION POST. EVERYONE LOVES A DISCUSSION POST.

*you cannot see it but there is a lot of internal eye rolling going on thanks to this lukewarm introduction paragraph here*

Anyway, I was reading Invictus by Ryan Gradulin (which is really good so far), and I started to notice chapter titles and actually, for once in my reading career, started reading them. It wasn’t until halfway through the book when I started to skip them again, I asked myself the question, “Am I alone in always skipping the chapter titles/information/etc. or is there a bunch of bookworms out there doing the same exact thing?”

So, what do you actually read and don’t read in a book? Obviously, we all read the text in books that makes up the story, but what do we actually decide what to skip or not skip? Does it change for each story? Obviously, we all read the actual story, but how much do we read of the “extras”?

What I Do/Don’t Read (aka the weird book habits of a Book Princess)

What I Don’t Read

• Chapter Headings: I don’t why, but I am forever skipping ahead straight to the content of the chapter. I finish my chapter, and my eyes just naturally go straight to the next part. That means I usually miss witty or deep character titles that I’m assuming authors have spent a good amount of time crafting, descriptions of where the characters are and what time/date they’re in, or some magical quote that I’m sure will have a profound impact of my life. The only time I actually want to deal with them? Well, Spelled by Betsy Schow had made up quotes from fictional fairytale characters, AND I CRIED THROUGHOUT THAT BOOK SO I COULDN’T DEAL WITH THAT AND GAVE SO MANY VIRTUAL PROPS TO IT.

• Descriptions – for the most part. I used to be terrible with descriptions. The moment I see an author trying to describe something – whether it be a tree, a dress, or literally anything except a main character – I’m out. I don’t much care about what this random house that I will never read about again when I could be revving up my book speed game and split on this paragraph. I will read some descriptions if they are quite beautiful and interesting or if they’re creating a particular atmosphere like in a certain spooky novel (looking at you Hunting Prince Dracula). But if it’s just for the sake of describing pretty things, Mandy out.
• Like, the first five pages. So, you have the opening page that’s blank, the title page, the copyright information page that has a lot of blah blah blah (except for that two sentence summary thing THAT I USED TO BE OBSESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSED WITH A FEW YEARS AGO AND HAD TO READ EACH AND EVERY ONE BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT GAVE ME INTENSE INSIGHT INTO THE BOOK), the dedication, the table of maybe contents, and I’m sure there’s something else thrown in there. I skip through all of them just until I get to my beginning part where I can skip the first chapter heading as well.
• Blurbs from other authors/random people off the street/celebrities/etc. You know how a book will have that little tagline on the cover? It will be all like, MARISSA MEYER SAYS THAT THIS BOOK WAS MMMMMMM OKAY, AND SHE IS YOUR QUEEN SO YOU KNOW, READ IT? Yeah, Mandy isn’t into that so much. Most of the time, I either don’t know the person or to be kind of callous, don’t really care? I know I’m going to most likely be Captain Unpopular Opinion, so I’m just going to disappoint what magically amazing author that loved it. XD

But I don’t care, Iggy?

• Sneak peeks/excerpts from other books. When I was rereading The Lunar Chronicles this year, I noticed that so many of them had excerpts for the next book in the series. Here you are, thinking you have so many more pages left to go in your book and oh, oops, NOPE. It’s actually this really awkwardly long excerpt of the next book that will take a year to come out. -_- I noticed they haven’t done too many of these in the past few years, which thank gosh, because I was scarred from Scarlet’s ending and where I read the sneak peek of Cress and was forever ruined BECAUSE I COULDN’T HAVE THAT BEAUTIFUL BOOK FOR A YEAR. NOT FAIR NOT FAIR NOT FAIR.

What I Actually Read

• Acknowledgments. This is actually a new thing. Before a few weeks ago, I always skipped this page at the end of the book. It was just something that I didn’t need to bother with. I mean, I don’t know a single person in the thank you’s, so why read them? However, Rendz at Reading with Rendz mentioned how she read every single page of the book including this, and I’m like, huh, maybe I should give it a try. The first one that I did was actually really interesting – it was for Stephanie Perkins’ There’s Someone Inside Your House. It was so interesting to see the author mention names that I actually knew from the book publishing field and then fellow authors that actually influenced and helped. It was so enlightening and so interesting. I know so many people skip this one too.

• Summaries. There are some books that I don’t read the summary for, but for the most part, I will read a book’s summary on the inner flap or back multiple times before I actually read a book. It’s my own way of getting hyped up for it. Usually when I have a large array of books that I’m having a hard time narrowing down to one on, I’ll pick up a book, reread the summary, and most likely convince myself to read it.

…okay, there is apparently a lot that I don’t read. Oops. v.v Perhaps that’s how I read books so fast? I don’t play around (OR APPARENTLY READ ANYTHING XD). Am I missing out, though? I’m not sure. I mean, I feel like I haven’t been missing out, but I really am surprised at all much I did miss with skipping the acknowledgments. However, I do think it means a lot more being in the book blogging field than had I just been on my own before.

So, what do you think? What do you do with your reading? What do you do and don’t read? Do we share any of the same quirks? Am I the only one that does these things? I want to know! Let’s discuss in the comments below!