Trashy Books again

[ailbhe]

I was thinking about them and the comments I received yesterday and I thought I'd ask all you lovely people to take two seconds to check the relevant boxes just for kicks and giggles.

[Poll #136889]

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Tricky one. I opted for "not intellectually stimulating" and "all three of plot-driven, badly crafted, has a soap opera style" but I think I need those two to be in combination before I write the book off as trashy (and that doesn't necessarily mean that I didn't enjoy it, either. Trash can be fun, but it's not art).

I can think of badly-crafted/plot-driven novels that aren't trash. "Too easy" would rule out umpteen classics. "Genres I don't like" is unfair - there are well-written M&B etc, they're just not to my taste (although the ones that fit my two criteria above can easily be labelled "trash"). "Specific social group" is tricky - "novels by celebrities" sounds like an easy one until you consider that some of them are actually bloody good (I like Sandi Toksvig's novels, for instance). Only porn has "too many" sex scenes, and that's only "too many to read in public" if we're honest. And "I don't like it" is mean. So there we are. I have shelves of what I'll happily call "trash" (mostly bad chick-lit) but I enjoyed it and it makes someone a living, so there we are. I might even try writing some myself if I can ever get a coherent thought together again.