Let’s Talk Bookish: Predicting Someone’s Genre

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022.

December 2: Can You Predict Someone’s Genre of Choice? 
(Fives @ Down the Rabbit Hole)

Prompts: What is your favorite genre and why? Is there a reason why those particular genres speak to you or capture your interest? What is your least favorite genre and why? Is the genre the biggest determination of whether you look for and choose a book, or is it something else? Do you find that you are able to predict what kind of genres people like based on their personalities? Do you notice patterns in which kinds of people like certain genres?

Favourite genres are Horror, Fantasy and Romance. All three have such a different things to offer, and for me they balance each other out. I read more than these three, but they’re definitely my favourites. I feel like even within the genres they have such wide, varied themes, settings, characters. They speak to me because in different ways they examine what it means to be human. Horror and Fantasy can both go down a dark path, not to say Romance can’t too but it tends to be a different type of dark path. I guess I also like protagonists fighting against something, which all three also offer – in a literal sense for Horror and Fantasy, and a more internal, metaphorical sense in Romance.

I feel like these tend to be the genres that have the most interesting-to-me characters. They’re also more likely to contain my favourite tropes, or put interesting spins on them, or even parody the tired ones that have come before! My least favourite genre might be sci-fi. I enjoy some of it, but I don’t seek it out like the others. And it’s not even all sci-fi! Some of it I really do like. But add in too many science elements, or throw “Military” before the title and I am just not interested in the slightest. I don’t tend to enjoy books when they come with too much jargon, though I know others really do like it.

Sometimes genre plays a key role, but say, for example, if I’m requesting books on NetGalley, often I’ll look across all genres. Though I will pay particular attention to more speculative fiction, I’ve also picked up Literary, Historical etc. If the story sounds compelling, the story sounds compelling, and that’s all it takes for me to be interested really.

I actually don’t think I can predict many patterns, and partly I think it’s cause I read such varied genres! I think in some instances some things can be ‘obvious’ in a sense – you might be able to tell if someone likes Fantasy or Horror especially, but normally it takes a while for me talking and getting to know someone before I can pinpoint that sort of thing. I do try and give friends recommendations for books I know they’ll like, and occasionally have introduced a friend to a new genre, based on what they’ve enjoyed in the past, even if the genre they usually read is completely different.

What about you – are you any good at predicting what genre someone might like?