Bookish Pet Peeves

Good evening everyone! Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend. I was scrolling through Instagram this afternoon, and while looking at all the beautiful pictures by people I follow, I couldn’t help to cringe at certain things……When it comes to my books, I’m pretty particular about them. I hardly lend them out unless it’s to someone that I KNOW I can trust, otherwise I’m scared they’ll come back damaged or lost. With that being said, here is a little list of my bookish pet peeves, or things that people do that drive me crazy!!

Dog eared pages

I remember in sixth grade when the Deathly Hallows came out, a boy in my class was reading it and every time he would put it down, he’d dog ear the page. Even at that age, it would make me cringe, it ruins the book and puts creases in it!! If I don’t have a bookmark available, then I’ll just memorize what page I’m on rather than folding the corner of the page over.

Changing covers before the whole series is released

In a perfect world, all series will be released with the same style cover and same size. When publishers change the design of a book in a series, and it doesn’t match the first ones that came out, it really frustrates me. I like all of my series to match so when they do this it’s putting everything out of sorts and to me, it’s an eye sore on my bookshelf. For example, The Reaper at the Gates is a completely different cover than the first two in the series, and while it is gorgeous, I now have an unmatched series, and I don’t have the money to fix it to have them match. It’s different if authors release special editions of books, but when they change them partway through the whole series being released, it just makes me a little annoyed.

Getting a book back damaged

There have been many times where I would lend out a book to an acquaintance, and it would either get returned damaged, or just never returned at all. Nothing was worse than when I would get a book back with creased pages, bent spines, and ripped jackets.

Folded paper back cover 

I know that this may sound a little dramatic, but when I see this in my Instagram feed, and someone is trying to show off the title of the book on the first page, it makes my head spin. This is just damaging to the book and cover, and I guess that is something that has always bothered me!

Not knowing how to pronounce a characters name

This is a rough one because a few years ago whenever I didn’t know how to pronounce a characters name or a place in a book, I would just replace it with a more common name, or adapt it to something similar the best I could. Luckily, authors have been blessing us these past few years with pronunciation guides, so this isn’t so bad for me anymore. But OMG I remember everyone trying to say Hermione’s name, and it was a big thing when she sounded it out for Victor Krum in Goblet of Fire (I think, correct me if I’m wrong lol). Most recently, I had a little trouble with SJM characters names Rhys=Rice and Aelin=Eileen for me. I read them correctly now after looking up Sarah’s guide, but for a while there I was getting them allllllll wrong!!

Never returning a book

A moment of silence for all the books that you and I have ever lent out to someone, and were never returned…..this really should be number one on my list, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. For me, when someone lends me a book I try to read it within a week to get it back to that person in a reasonable time frame. But for “normal” people who don’t read a book in a day like I frequently do, they take their time and put other obligations first…I get that but if you’re not going to read a book I let you borrow within a month, just give it back. It stresses me out to not know what is going on with it, lol.

My books are some of my most precious possessions, so I guess I can say I’m a little crazy when it comes to them, and that’s okay! Everyone is different and is particular about certain things. Do you have any pet peeves/annoyances when it comes to your books or books in general? Let me know down below!!