Discussion Post: Things I Want To See More of in Books

This post is kind of a hybrid between my usual bookish lists and a discussion post so I’m not sure how to define it but I wanted to share with you guys some of my thoughts on stuff I’d like to see more of in books! These aren’t exclusively aimed toward the Young Adult genre, there are a few that are Adult books but most of them are YA just a heads up!

Male POVs (NOT multiple POVs that have male characters)

Examples: Anna Dressed in Blood,  The Percy Jackson Series, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, & The Knife of Never Letting Go.

I definitely don’t think  there are enough YA books with male point of views, sure there are books that have multiple POVs with male characters included but there are very few (that I have read anyways) that are strictly one male POV.

I like that male main characters’ narratives generally do not focus on romances or at least they don’t focus on dresses and fluff……I think male characters are just as much fun to read about as females, so why is the balance so uneven? Is it because a majority of authors and readers are female? Who knows….

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Actual Badass Female Characters

Examples: And I Darken, The Winner’s Curse, The Diabolic, Nevernight, & Stormdancer.

Sure a lot of series/books SAY their heroines are total badasses but are they really? Take for example the ever popular Throne of Glass series flaunting the “badass assassin” Celaena, now this is my own opinion based off the first book, but I did not find her badass AT ALL.  She’s all talk and no action, which seems to be the case with more than a few YA heroines.

I’d like more heroines along the lines of the vicious, calculating Lada Dracul (And I Darken) who revels in her cruelty. Or Kestrel (The Winner’s Curse) whose badassness resides in her smarts rather than in her combat skills. Heroines that prove time and again just how badass females can be!

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Animal Companions

Examples: Stormdancer

For some reason I was brain-farting other books that have prominent animal companions but I got “Stormdancer”! I absolutely love when animals are constant companions in books because, come on, who doesn’t love animals? Buruu the arashitora (flying tiger/eagle hybrid thingy?) in “Stormdancer” has the most hilarious dialogue at times and is one of my favorite characters, making me crave more books with similar animal characters.

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Diversity

Examples: Labyrinth Lost, Timekeeper, The Wrath & The Dawn, & Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer

Of course this is a HUGE one and I think we can all easily agree with it as well! We need more diverse books, unproblematic ones too since there seems to be about as many with problems as there are without at the moment. Generally I’d just love to see an onslaught of books with LGTB characters and characters of different races being represented correctly.

The examples above are just a few books I enjoyed and as far as I know haven’t proved problematic with their representation of diversity. If there are please let me know so I can be aware of any problems!

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Unique Formatting

Examples: Illuminae & The Dead House

This is kind of a new one but I absolutely loved the unique formatting in both of these books and they proved to be quite the reading experience because of it. It just makes reading so much more interesting and fun when the formatting contains journal pages, drawings, interviews, and more. I’d definitely love to see more unique formatting in books!

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More Dark, Twisted Atmospheres

Examples: Anything by Gillian Flynn, Alice, & Night Film

I absolutely love when authors take us a step further into their stories by making the general atmosphere dark, grungy, and completely mind consuming. They basically twist and turn and make you FEEL the darkness and the terror! I love it and I’d definitely love to see more books as dark and messed up as the examples I used above.

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BFF Friendships

Examples: Truthwitch, The Raven Boys, & The Harry Potter Series

I feel like friendships in books (especially YA) are extremely underrated, sure the characters might have friends but they usually aren’t shown very often or don’t prove to be very important. I love reading about friendships in books, true friendships where they’d do anything to protect each other and not just use a friend as a plot device.

Some great examples of true, real feeling friendships are the above books where I thought they did a fantastic job of showing how friends should be represented in books.

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Morally Ambiguous Characters

Examples: Vicious, Six of Crows, & This Savage Song

This is probably my favorite type of character, morally ambiguous, because nothing is ever black or white. They make for such interesting plots when characters aren’t truly good or bad and are somewhere in between so the consequences for their actions aren’t quite set in stone.

The BEST example for this type of character is “Vicious” but the other two are great as well, these books show characters that aren’t exactly goody-goody but aren’t necessarily “bad guys” either. It keeps things interesting and I just feel like we don’t truly see these types of characters that often.

So what are some things YOU’D like to see more of in books?

Do you agree with any of these listed?

Have you read or do you know of any other books that fit the things I listed?

What are your general thoughts on what I listed?

Let me know in the comments, I’d really love to hear some discussion on these!