Trashy Books

[ailbhe]

I'm getting increasingly annoyed at this as a categorisation. Yes, I have used it myself. But I don't understand how it's used - some people use to to mean "genre I don't like", some use it to mean "plot I don't like", some use it to mean "badly written", and some use it to mean "popular". What makes a book trash?

I think that I tend to use it to mean "poorly thought out" or "unoriginal and badly written". But I suspect I have also used it to mean "popular romance".

Can you think of any genres which you think of as "trash"?

Comments

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'll go along with that (except that I haven't read 'The Thorn Birds'). Also the plot tends to be remarkably formulaic and either predictable or with inconsistent twists thrown in for the sake of twistiness. Soap-operatic, as you said.