//Just a slight note : If any of the content below points/indicates/touches you personally, it is just a coincidence.
//That being said, I don’t think I need to say that this is my own personal opinion and you have every right to disagree.
This is just a fun, interactive idea I had about writing about the things I like and dislike in book blogs, and hearing from you guys about the things YOU like and dislike. Let’s just not be diplomatic, and accept straight out that there are some particular aspects which, when it comes to a book blog, really stands out, and some which make the blog meh. So I’m just here to talk about a few of the things I admire and dislike!
(Please remember that these are not the ONLY 3 things I like/dislike in book blogs..there are many more things and factors, I just chose to mention these three for each. So, even if your blog doesn’t have the three things I’m going to mention just now, I may still love you and your blog :) )
3 Things I Really Like in Book Blogs
Organization.
I’m a sucker for organized, well-formed, well-structured things, in general. So when it comes to book blogs, the first thing I set my eyes on is some organization and neatness. I like uniformity and things to be in order. I like the content of the blog to be in apprehensible order. Sometimes bloggers just mush everything in their post and it comes off as very haphazard planning. It’s excusable sometimes, but when the entire blog is like that, it gets a bit annoying. I notice simple things, like the category you put your post under. Or, (this will sound crazy), but the regular features of a book blog (like wrap ups, tbrs, book hauls, etc.) – if the titles of these posts are not uniform every month, I get irritated :( (ok hate me). But, like, if you post April’s Wrap Up as ‘What I Read in April’ and May’s Wrap up as ‘May Read Books’ – it gets on my nerve. I’m not saying it has to be exactly the same – but a little uniformity is much appreciated by me.
Variety
This is pretty much obvious – I like book blogs to have variety. When I think of a perfect book blog – I like them to be a whole – a complete thing. Book blogs doing just fun tags and book hauls aren’t that informative, whereas book blogs focusing on just reviews slowly become monotonous. A proper mixture of fun and information is what I look for in all book blogs.
Discussion
The best kind of post I like to read are discussion posts. I just love hearing other people’s opinions upon bookish things, I love to hear their thoughts (even if I disagree with them) and I love finding out new discussions topics. Sadly, discussion posts are not that famous or that frequent (I admit even I myself am not that good at discussion posts). So, when I see a blog which has even a few discussions, I immediately get attracted. Reading discussions is very eye-opening and interesting. I wish more people would do them! (And I wish I start doing more of them too :P)
3 Things I Dislike in Book Blogs
Reviews loaded with over-exaggeration.
Sample :
Okay. I understand your emotions. But thing is, I’m not interested. I’m not as interested in knowing whether you can function right now or not (which you probably can, coz you know, you’re typing and all) but what I’m really interested in is knowing more about the book. It’s okay if the entire review has one or two instances like these, but when a review is full of all such exaggerations – biggest turn offs ever.
I like to read informative reviews. I like to know more about the book than what you felt about the book. Of course, as a reader and a reviewer, you’re bound to tell me what you thought of the book (I do too, in my reviews) but I always like reviews which tell me more things about the book than the reader’s individual take on it. I do love to read the reader’s thoughts on the book, but the information factor has to be more than that.
But, reveiws which are filled with statements like the ones I showed you above? No no no no no no please just NO.
Unregularity
Unless you’ve informed me about your hiatus, I get very annoyed when bloggers disappear or not post often. I’m not asking you to post every day, but once a week is, I dunno, mandatory, I guess? If you can’t take time to post about your reads even once a week, then I….it’s a turn off, just.
Different colors.
Oh my god imagine a post where every two line or so, the color of the font changes. *cringes* It’s really, really unappealing. Again, not really asking you to post in just one colour, but that doesn’t mean you add up all the colours, does it?
So that was pretty much it! Join in the discussion! Share your opinions!
Going Through Books 
I agree with you. Variety is what makes a good blog. For me, if I see 20 of the same Tuesday memes, I usually skip over them. Lists are another thing I’ve been trying to avoid myself because they become a bit old when it’s the same thing on every blog. I like posts where each blogger can personalize what they’re reading like WWW Wednesday. This way it’s not the same thing repeated because what’s the chance we’re all reading the same books? I was also thinking about doing a similar post, but you covered everything I was thinking about, so this was nice to read. I also agree with over exaggerations about how something was so amazing. It completely distracts from the review. Saying you have no words because it was so good means absolutely nothing to me in regards to the quality of the writing, plot, and characters. Personally, I like a review broken down into parts. I use characters, plot, likes and dislikes as my format unless I’m doing a rant or mini review where it’s just a few sentences per book. As far as length, I don’t mind if it’s long as long as it’s informative. Discussion posts are also a great way to interact with other bloggers. My favorite discussion posts are from Pages Unbound. I really love their blog structure. I will admit I’m an offender of using a color other than black for my hyperlinks, and I sometimes use it for titles. Looking back at some of the posts, I’m wondering why I changed the font color for a heading instead of just using bold to make it stand out. I also recently decided to change my sidebar so the content wasn’t longer than the posts on the homepage. That’s another thing to consider. If the blog posts are shorter than the sidebar, it does look a bit strange and no one is going to read it anyway. Nice post!
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Thank you! I’m so glad you took out the time to type so much!
Yes, though initially I had been excited about reading and creating lists, its appeal is slowly wearing off.
Even I like personalized stuff – love reading them. Tho TTT is a guilty pleasure of mine :P
Yes, over-exaggerations are annoying. I don’t mind a long review but I do mind when the review doesn’t say much. Even I have lately started to structure my reviews into summary, pros, cons and final verdict.
And, I’ll have to check out Paged Unbound then!
Honestly, I don’t mind when there’s one or two minor color changes, (I’ve done them in one or two posts of mine too) but what irks me is when there are TOO many colors in the post.
Yes, even I don’t like sidebars longer than the blog itself.
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I started re-doing some of my site yesterday, and I noticed I had some font size discrepancies between the pages, and I cleaned up all of my categories so they lined up with my menu. I didn’t even realize how out of whack some of the pages were after I switched layouts. I think I’m okay now, just need to take another look when I get the chance. I haven’t done a TTT, and I know this sounds strange, but I can’t even remember what the prompt is. Is it like T5W where they have a new top 10 every week or do you pick what you want to do? I’m trying to avoid lists when possible, but sometimes I do like to see a quick and easy to read post, knowing there’s only a certain number of books or topics. I like posts like top 5 things you need to know about… Posts like that always pique my interest. Anything with writing or blog tips automatically gets my attention as well. Yes, definitely check out Pages Unbound. I love interacting with them, and I will read anything they post. The quality of their writing is really good, and their discussion topics are so different from other blogs that it really sets them apart.
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I’m right now on my phone so I can’t check out your site but I’ll do it soon :) TTT is basically a meme where they give a new topic every Tuesday and all bloggers make their lists. It’s exactly like T5W but with a list of ten things.
Yes… Anything including writing and blogging tips is definitely interesting to me too.
And I’ll surely check out Pages Unbound!
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I agree with most of your bullets. I think a blog that isn’t just book reviews, but other bookish things is better. It keeps me interested b/c quite frankly there are books I am just not interested in and I’d like to keep visiting a person’s blog. I also don’t like the reviews you pointed out. They both me. Now I don’t claim to be either the best book review or commenter but I try and I will get better. But I don’t want ridiculous phrases all throughout a person’s reveiw.
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Yes exactly what I wanted to convey :)
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Love this post. I agree completely about the organization of a blog. I love structure, and I want things to be laid out in a way that makes logical sense. If a blog just looks thrown together, it stresses me out!
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Haha yes! Thrown together blogs stress me out too.
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