your unpopular book opinions 🚑 coho, fantasy romance, the book community, and aaron warner hate lol 

“you are responsible for what content you consume” SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

My hot take: like a solid 90% of books that go mega viral on booktok have wattpad fanfic kind of writing 😳😳

My unpopular opinion: emotional intelligence and healthy relationships are so hot, and it is frustrating to have such unhealthy dynamics uplifted constantly (but also I’m a sucker for enemy to lover and forced love so I am the problem I see)

Hot take: people (particularly on BookTok) have an alarmingly low ability to think critically. I’ve been seeing so much hate being sent to different authors for writing flawed characters, where people think that the author must be flawed in the same way as the character (particularly see this with instances of misogyny in books). It’s like people have forgotten that humans are inherently flawed and make mistakes and sometimes authors write (and SHOULD write!) flawed characters because it’s our job as the reader to think critically about the material and LEARN FROM IT. We would get nothing from literature if every character was perfect and if every situation worked out perfectly!!!!

Every fantasy absolutely needs a FREAKING DRAGON. Tolkien himself said so. I will die on this hill. Right next to my pet dragon. Oh, hey Cari, have a good night!

about the stuff about the toxicity over different opinions in the book community, i once saw a booktokker (cannot for the life of me remember who it was) say that reading is percieved as a moral act. there's a set of values and personality traits ascribed to reading that not many other hobbies do, like readers are seen as inherently more educated, mature or good for instance. there's a certain elitism, that you're better than others because you read and reading makes you a good person. all hobbies form part of your identity, but i think because reading is perceived as innately moral, your reading choices are seen to reflect part of your values, hence the vitriol when it comes to people disliking other's favourite books. it is seen as an attack on their personality, not just a disagreement over a book.

My unpopular opinion is that most teen books where the main character is a girl, don't have fully fleshed out male characters. Everything about the love interest - even the flaws - just exist to make them all the more attractive. They're so similar now that they are literally interchangeable.

my unpopular opinion is that i hate ppl pretending that terrible (mostly smutty) books are all amazing. just bc you love a book doesn’t mean it’s a great book. like i read icebreaker and i had a fun time reading it, but i’m not going to go around saying what an amazing work of literature if is. ya know?

Spicy opinion on POVs: We need more books in 3rd person POV. I'm sick of 1st person POV being in almost every recent major book series.

I agree about books being unnecessarily lengthy now 😭😭 like why am I reading 300pgs of fluff and only 200 of the storyline 😭😭😭

Unpopular Opinion: a lot of modern fantasy books are written like a fan fiction set in someone else’s fantasy world- and it makes them unreadable.

17:05 I think the timeless, more romantic pet names like "beloved" and "my love" are great and I like being called a pet name irl platonically, romantically, or by family. But there's just something SO gross about reading a "babe", "princess", or "baby girl"! It's awful when male authors do it, it's awful when female authors do it. Someone needs to research why that is 😂

personally i love elaborate clothing descriptions/appearance descriptions. i read a lot of fantasy where the character is royal, or lives in a royal palace for something and i LIVE for that type of stuff. like omg yes she’s wearing a strapless purple dress with black lace and black satin gloves? give it to me. it makes me happy to see that in a book, and it also guides my imagination

Not unpopular opinions, sorta, but more of my hot take. Romantic tropes are spoilers, like friends to lovers, enemy to lovers, found family, etc., more so than any other genre. Once someone starts describing books with those, I get aggravated cuz you ultimately know how the leads are going to end up together. And I am Team Crack the Damn Spines!

An unpopular opinion of my own: Dark romance is not an excuse to just write terrible things and then justify it with dark romance (this take brought to you by my horrendous experience reading Haunting Adeline)

The First Kiss> Spice is so true. Nothing makes me madder than when they have a spicy scene first, without any yearning. It’s so uninteresting. I literally don’t care how spicy it is as long as it’s a good slow burn

yes to the slow burn bc once the main characters say i love you to each other and mean it the book is basically over to me and i clock out so if the author doesn’t save it for the end they’ve shot themselves in the foot

I am so sick of the "I'll burn down the world for you" types of male love interests. It’s rare to find a love interest with a golden retriever personality in fantasy romance. Every time Ryhs or Jax or Aaron Warner is talking I just want to reach into the story and smack them around a bit.

My hot take: Different books are written for different reasons and THAT IS OKAY. There’s a certain genre of books I affectionately call “Sunday Afternoon Books”. Just those really cozy, easy to read, sweet books with very low stakes conflict. I love those just as much as I love the darker sadder books such as Six of Crows or Song of Achilles. Sometimes I want to cry, and sometimes I just want to read a sweet retelling of Cinderella where she gathers up the courage to leave her stepmother and apprentice with a sweet old seamstress.

Unpopular opinion:Romance books are becoming more aggressive and setting toxic relationships as ideal relationships

i don't know what it is about you talking about the weather often, but it makes your videos very cosy, like having a conversation about everything and anything with a close friend

UNPOPULAR OPINION: I’m getting so sick of morally gray characters and depressing books. I understand making things realistic, but at some point everyone being morally grey gets boring and honestly just unbelievable. And then with depressing books, at some point they become so depressing it’s almost laughable. Can we not just write stories about good people who struggle but make it through with resilience in the end? Those have ALWAYS been the stories that reminded me that there are reasons to keep fighting.

UNPOPULAR OPINION: I will take a Found Family trope over a romance plot any time of the day. Seriously. I'm a writer (hi) and I actually struggle to write long books. It baffles me how so many writers just write so many long books, especially in a series. Mine usually end up on the shorter side because I approach my scenes with a "Do I need this scene to advance the plot?"-mindset, and when I feel it doesn't, I just drop it. (On the flip side, my books tend to be on the shorter side, which is also not ideal. I'm working on it.)

American librarian here! Colleen Hoover books are still VERY popular with certain types of readers, but it seems like just as many people can’t stand her. She also seems to be a good way to get people into books who may not be established readers. My hairdresser is a big example of this. So while the books are really not for me personally, they definitely have their people still.

to the faery thing- The Cruel Prince has really good Worldbuilding. It has it's flaws but holly black really makes it clear that they aren't human and it plays a big part in the story, and the whole series has kind of a fairytale vibe

i always wondered why dual or multiple povs were never just written in the 3rd person..because you can still know the inner workings of a character in 3rd person, it just makes it not as confusing if you’re constantly switching between characters that have been written with really similar voices

the thing about picturing characters is so so real. it’s always a blurry vague shape of a human in my head. the vibes of the character and the energy they give off is always prominent for me. i would know them always. but i can’t actually see them lol. thought it was just me and now i feel grateful and understood. thank you ❤ so much fun to spend time on this channel, as always

I made myself read Fourth Wing bc of the hype and it was literally the most average fantasy book I’ve read recently! 😂 I was so mad loool

the intense "who did this to you" / "i would burn down the world for you" etc scenes are weird in contemporary unless it's a specific context like mafia or spies or whatever I don't read those but i think it's better w/ stories with higher stakes like fantasy. It hits harder and it's more believable in that context

I liked surprise pregnancy in romance books until I had kids. Like I can think of nothing less romantic than going through pregnancy, especially unplanned, and having a baby that screams and keeps you up at night for months-years and pushes your relationship to its limits. Kids are incredible and I love being a parent but it’s literally the opposite of a dreamy romance for me. Also the pregnancy epilogue. I hate the notion that the end or goal for all romantic relationships should be babies.

I personally don’t get the spine cracking thing. Maybe it’s because my parents used to run a bookshop, so they’re both quite careful readers; but for me, “loving your books” is reading them and being gentle with them.

I don't get how easily people write stuff on their books with pens and markers lol, I feel bad even while underlining sentences with a pencil

I like descriptions of the characters so I can remember them and I do picture them in my head. If they don’t describe them my mind will invent how they look and if later in the book they describe them it throws me off.

I like pet names that start as sarcastic/condescending and turns into affectionate

I absolutely love reading standalones because I love exploring more and more worlds and characters! ( I can only read series' if I'm really dedicated to reading them personally..😂)

I only ever buy used books, and the more beat up the better, because I love the idea that the book has been around for a while, moved through people’s lives, and look like they have been brought to the beach, on a plane, and read in a hammock or a tent. 😉

Loved the comment you made about not attaching who you are to what you read. I feel like if we attach who we are to what we read, when it comes to fiction, it results in us not being able to look at the book critically because we refuse to accept any critiques on it, even if they are accurate. We can like books that aren't perfect. Especially with classics, there do tend to be things that haven't aged well and that should be acknowledged. -from a former wannabe tumblr girly

I'M DEAD the fear in your eyes displaying the aaron warner hate.... iconic

these chats are delightful and every comedic edit that references mean girls gives me such joy

the way you explained how murakami writes women was a really long way of saying he writes manic pixie dream girls lol

First, 100% agree on the surprise baby/pregnancy trope. No thank you, hard pass. Happy couple planning to have a kid under normal, healthy circumstances? Sure, cool, whatever. Still not my thing, because pregnancy in general is terrifying to me. But I get the appeal of the adoring family vibes. Second, honestly, give yourself some credit for the kind of community you've cultivated here on your channel. Because I've seen people in a lot of other places absolutely tear into the kind of "guilty pleasure reads" that over here we all just smile and laugh at. You are very kind and nuanced in the way you talk about books - even when it's bad over all, you still acknowledge when a particular line is funny, or a description catches you, or whatever - and your audience reflects that kind of understanding. For everyone in the comments that's like "OMG I couldn't even get past the first page! The writing was so bad!" there's someone who read it for the first time as a tween and absolutely loves them. But instead of taking the mick out of each other over it, you've cultivated an environment where we can all go "Ok yes, the writing is SO corny... but sometimes corny is fun!" and just live and let live. It's part of what makes this such an awesome space to be in.

I'm a spine cracker on some of my books - my collector's editions remain uncracked cause they're too pretty.

Murakami thoughts: I don’t need to waste time reading from a man who doesn’t view women as equal when there are so many other books to read. I’ve only read a few chapters of IQ84 but it just made me uncomfortable. And that was before I knew he had this reputation. So I totally believe he’s a good writer and there are beautiful or important things in his books, but I can get that elsewhere and without the misogyny. (And I liked hearing your thoughts! I’m glad you enjoy him)

One of my biggest bookish icks is a trope that i've seen in a lot of new adult romantic fantasies where the main male character has been through sexual assault and that theme is never explored or given proper attention. In so many of these books, it seems to me that the authors only add this to the character's backstory to make the character more "appealing" to the audience. It's like they want to create a dangerous bad boy character who is horrible and treats the main girl terribly without ever crossing the boundary of making it seem like he could ACTUALLY hurt her because he's been SA'd therefore he's not a threat. I've literaly seen ACOTAR fans imply that Rhys being SA'd makes him a feminist and I just want to bang my head in the wall. Especially because when these same authors write female characters who've been through sexual assault, they make it such an important part of the story, which is very understandable, but still depicted horribly. In most cases, i've seen it used as a device so that the main male character gets angry and kills the guy who assaulted her OR to make him more appealing because in comparison "well at least he didn't sexually assault her". I think in both cases it is a terrible depiction of sexual assault and these authors have to stop perpetuating these disgusting tropes. I want to emphasize that i'm not generalizing and saying that EVERY/ONLY new adult romantic fantasy books do this. But i've seen these tropes in many of them and it is so rarely talked about or in the worst cases praised. Sexual assault as a whole is a theme that needs to be explored sensitively and i don't think it should ever be used to make the story darker or more adult or whatever the fuck they are trying to make people believe. If you're not gonna depict it well, don't depict it.

I feel like these weren’t nearly as controversial as you feared 😂 My two cents on Murakami is as far as I can see he’s a babyboomer who’s grown up separated from women so much he has no idea how harmful the patriarchy is even without a single insidious thought behind his actions. Just really out of his depth, and even more so when he tried writing an intersex gay man who had had enough of terfs and other harmful versions of nonintersectional feminism (so absolutely valid), but couldn’t even find the words for it. I think his foundational values checks out, it’s just not a very updated software.

My local bookstores flooded us with CoHo books to the point were her books would take a whole aisle ! They were EVERYWHERE!! After months of suffering, the finally started to disappear from shelves, cuz ppl really started hating her and it is a popular opinion to hate on her books😂

Ooo Lowkey my favorite “I’ll burn the world down for you” is actually when Alec tells Clary that Jace would burn the world for her and like search for her in the ashes or something lol I don’t know why but that gets me everytime 👌🏻

Romance book ---> pregnancy ---> Horror book

The thing about dual pov for me is that it can take away all the romantic tension for me. With singular pov you don't know what the guy is thinking, if he's into her, when his feelings shift, etc. But with dual pov, that is gone instantly since you're in both their heads, taking all the intrigue with it. So you're just passively waiting for them to get together. AND it can make miscommunication that much more annoying.

I hope everyone has a lovely day ❤

Urgh, pseudo-intellectual readers are the worst! They immediately try to push the narrative that one is too stupid to understand a particular book, and that's why you don't like it. Because personal taste dies off if you read Classics, it seems 🙄

“Kindle unlimited is paying by pages read” oh boy we’re back in the victorian era

When my little girl started school, her teacher says “Darling” and my daughter picked it up. She sounded so funny calling everyone Darling.

My unpopular opinion is I hate romance in books but love platonic relationships between people that are attracted to each other. Any romance or makings out is so cringe to me because most authors don’t write it well and I don’t feel that having a hookup should be the payoff or happy ending to a book. It’s a distraction from the plot and flow of the book. Just write about friendships.

I agree so hard with not wanting to know too much about authors! It makes it difficult to read the book without thinking about them actually writing the book. I feel the same way about actors too. I blame the internet and it’s obsession with Jennifer Lawerence for ruining my enjoyment of Catching Fire when it came out. All I could think of the whole time watching the movie was “wow that seems stressful to film” or “I wonder how many takes they had to do screaming and crying like that”.

I agree that Booktok has gotten to be a super toxic environment. I was actively on Booktok for a year and a half. It felt like there was a new scandal every single day. Some creator said something, an author said or did something, or the publisher did. It was honestly exhausting. My feed was ads, book hauls, and complaining for the most part. Book hauls are great, but you can only watch so many. 😂 I think there needs to be more positivity in the Book community all around. The most troubling thing for me on there is this list of authors that people should stop reading because of various offenses the authors committed. Book banning needs to stop! 🛑 I’m a librarian and it breaks my heart when I see articles about books pulled from shelves. I think that if you don’t want to read something; don’t do it. You don’t have the right to stop someone else from reading it.

Enemies to lovers, when done well, is absolutely superior!

I’ve never annotated in a book bc I simply get too sucked in to even so that, but I do love the “aesthetic” of it when I see pictures of people doing it

When you said you can't picture faces a lightbulb just went off in my head. I can't do that either!! ! I just imagine two nebulous people and all I care about is their relationship with each other, not what they look like!

13:50 I like clothing descriptions when it's established the character really likes fashion. It adds an extra layer of passion. I'm thinking of "A Lady for a Duke" when writing this. I love the descriptions of clothing in that because Viola LOVES clothes and it's something that was inaccessible to her before her transition.

Intergenerational friendships, i just love them when presented in books ~😭💜 Enemies to friends to best friends are superior ~💜

mine is that it’s possible to enjoy a book or series while also acknowledging it’s faults. i finished wheel of time recently and i can definitely say there’s a lot of issues but it is also an amazing series. these ideas can coexist and conversations about books shouldn’t be as black or white as they are.

My kinda unpopular opinion is that Tiktok in particular is so oversaturated with the same hit-or-miss books with the same tropes, but I still want to read them cause that's what being shoved down my throat as 'amazing' only to end up dissapointed. If I'm reccomended a less popular book I have no desire to read it because its not in circulation, but I have no desire to read the popular ones because theres a weird pressure about them. It's odd, other people are saying how good book social media is by increasing peoples want to read but I'm feeling the opposite, yet I can't get away from it!

A nickname in a book that I think works really well: in Jianeine Frost's night huntress series the main character's name is Cat and the snarky love interest calls her Kitten at first to mock her but then it becomes really endearing as they fall for each other

I LOVE LOVE LOVE cracking spines and annotating my books (sparingly). It’s like a little Time Capsule every time you reread a book, I love looking back at myself 2 years ago and seeing how much growth, change, and love I’ve experienced for all of my books! Loved this ranking video!

Aww I wish you could talk more about lit fic. I loved hearing you talk about your thoughts on Murakami! I never realized that hate was more intense for different genres of book tubers.

I completely agree with your thoughts on Murakami. I was pretty surprised when I saw the amount of tiktoks calling his work misogynistic. In my eyes, I see his female characters as very similar to male love interests written by female romance authors. There, the male characters are often copies of each other depending on archetypes (the snarky businessman, the shy childhood friend, the jock etc). and they only exist to serve the romance plot.

17:57 ok but when Kenji call Juliette Princess, it's such a cute nickname, like I love his humor

The problem with the pregnancy trope is how it’s done. 9/10 times the MC either doesn’t want children or literally doesn’t mention it ever? And then most dark romances, especially kindle unlimited, end with a kid/pregnancy. If the MC had always wanted to be a mom, had strong maternal instinct her whole life, that’s different. HOWEVER, I feel like usually it’s used as a closer. I’ve read quite a few dark romance novels that the author goes painstakingly out of the way to include and explain a pregnancy or child as making sense for the novel. Especially in stand alone novels it’s frustrating, you decided to have the book end with a baby before publishing it, at least make it a little bit more canon so it doesn’t seem like the plot and characters change a ton in the last two chapters to make room for this baby, and not like oh no we have to move so there’s literal room for the kid, but complete changes in life style and plot that weren’t even alluded to before it happens. It’s really frustrating as a woman who doesn’t want to have children. Like even these characters who have never mentioned babies are suddenly uprooting themselves to have a baby because that’s the “happy ending”? If it was more like the MC mentions once or twice wanting a kid and it’s the life circumstances that are preventing that, then I’d understand and wouldn’t mind, but shifting the whole story all of a sudden for that ending? I don’t get it

I specifically only use tabs in books that I love where I often want to reread certain scenes and it makes it easier to find those scenes again 😅

when I'm not feeling good, I watch your content and it always cheer me up. Thank you!

I was so shocked when she said she doesn’t like character descriptions/ doesn’t picture faces or features. I love outfit and appearance descriptions because I picture everyone’s faces in a lot of detail. (Sometimes I sit thinking until I have a picture of what they look like). The eye and hair color matters a lot for me, in Throne Of Glass I put a lot of effort into picturing Celaena with white hair lol. It also probably helps that I’m an artist and draw a lot of faces.

I appreciate you opening the window to share the rain noise.

I feel like I should defend annotating! I’ve always annotated books because I love to note my thoughts as I read, or else I forget them when I finish the book (and sticky notes block the words). Also, as I get older, my books have become a time capsule of my childhood thoughts and handwriting and it makes rereading them 10x better!

Cari I’ve recently found your channel and am having the best time watching your videos!!!! ❤❤ I just love your vibe, it’s such a joy to watch x

this was such a great video, cari! would love a part two!

I also can't picture faces and the like. If the look is needed, then I'll constantly google fan-art whenever the description pops up so I can remember what they're meant to look like. Your video on ACOTAR was amazing because Nesta and Elaine will now always be Regina and Karen from mean girls. Love you for that.

Super interesting hearing you talk about the toxicity of the book "communites". I personally have considered it so many times because I love talking about books, but I can't handle the internet backlash 😅

It looks like you had a lot of fun editing this video, it was especially fun to watch!

Cari I just finally finished sorcery of thorn and I liked it so much! Was thrilled to find out that there was a sequel/ short story and immediately ordered that 💞

“Sweetheart “ is what my father calls me so … it gives me major ick when it’s used in a romance 😂 I agree that ironic and funny pet names are the best it also makes the relationship seem more personal

Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn is only 250 pages and it is totally complete. I think many older fantasy books had to be shorter, and so they had to really create the world and characters and plots without wasting any time. I'd like to see more books go back to that.

cari! you just made my day by posting a new vid❤️

I personally love when people describe the hair and outfits!! I’m not great at imagining faces either, but I just think it’s fun to come up with the characters appearance in my head, even if it won’t be the “model” I use in my little mind scene thingies when I read :))

Oh no i got into ACOTAR because of all your videos so i now have to sound off as a fantasy smut enjoyer 😂 also that mean girls meme made me laugh so hard thank you for that ❤

I’m just here to say I also love Murakami. Despite any discourse surrounding him/his work there has never been another author on this planet that puts me into a whole new mind space like his books do. Love that.

Off topic but you look so good with your hair in a bun! That bit you added in editing with your hair up, and you look SOOO good

I adore your red hair! I wish mine was that color!!!! ❤

hi! with what you mentioned about not loving dual pov so much and also liking slow burn, i recommend a lot of mariana zapata's newer books :)) anyways, your videos always make my day, so thank you

Cari cakes drops the f-bomb directly to the camera at 21:49 😂 Booktube cari is a different beast than travel vlog cari!!

14:15 I am so glad you said that about the blurry character outlines. when i say it people are like "you dont see stuff in your head when you read?" and im like no i do its just not like watching a movie it constantly changes.

In terms of annotating: - Doing it to keep track of info i.e. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder or Truly Devious (so you can try and solve the mystery) or like your fav OTP scenes is fine - esp. if your memory is iffy Thank you Carrie for all the amazing book recommendations!

Thank you for sharing that article on Murakami! He is one of my favorite authors, and people sometimes do judge me for it, which has always felt a little wrong. I think you nailed it when you described the nuance of the issue. Even as a lover of his work I've taken notice of his female characters, but I don't think it comes from a place of misogyny. How you described it makes a lot of sense.

I love what you said about us, the consumers, being in charge and making a choice about the content we consume. I want to be an author one day, so I don’t consume videos or content where people rip author’s or creators work to shreds. If that’s the content they want to make and people want to consume, great! But it makes me uncomfortable, so instead of bashing it or trashing those creators I just ignore it and don’t follow those people. It’s an easy choice to make

For annotating and underlining, I never do it to my own books. But that’s a thing I love about kindle is when it shows me lines that people have highlighted a lot. Idk why but I love it.

So many wonderful takes in this video! I really love the bit about perspective of how readers get caught up in books as a piece of their identity. So true and so good to keep in mind!

I HATE the violent male leads, the male leads that will brazenly kill people left and right for no reason or are unnecessarily cruel- even henchmen of the antagonist or like inconsequential background characters. If killing people is the only way you can demonstrate to me that you are powerful and “hardened” then you just start approaching immature and emotionally stunted territory. Also the whole “you looked at her the wrong way? Im gonna kill your whole bloodline 😈😈” shtick is so overplayed and just sounds like a teenage edgelord ☠️.

Pet names are good only if it’s either a joke between the two characters/a joke in general, or if it’s sunshine. Idk why but that is the only pet name I can tolerate, and even then it has to be used in a very specific way. Edit: I paused the video like five seconds before she started talking about sunshine to write this. She gets me!

I loved the comments and thoughts about liking or chosing to watch/engage with certain content and if a person knows that they will not deal with some kind of topic well, then they might need to consider clicking on it an reflecting that they are responsible for themselves and what kind of media/content they are feeding their brains and souls with. Thank you for voicing your thoughts about that! Loved that!!!

Omg you should do a tier ranking video. I'd love to see your take on it