Top Ten Tuesday—Unread Popular Writers

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly feature of The Broke and the Bookish. A full list of instructions and future themes can be found here. This week’s theme is Top Ten Popular Authors I’ve Never Read. Given how behind the times my tastes are, and that I almost never like or read books surrounded by massive hype, this list practically writes itself!

1. J.K. Rowling. Never read the Harry Potter franchise, never been interested in it. The massive hype doesn’t help either, nor do the people who act like you get off on killing kittens if you admit you haven’t read it and have zero interest. A lot of fans also take it way too far, like grown adults dressing in costumes at book releases and people unplugging their phones so they could read the books completely uninterrupted.

2. Stephenie Meyer. Nope, not gonna get into the Twilight franchise either. Don’t even get me started on what an awful example it is to young, impressionable teen girls about relationships.

3. Suzanne Collins. Yup, you guessed it, not gonna get into the Hunger Games franchise either, though I did enjoy the first movie when my roommate (my new roommate, not the old one!) and I watched it awhile ago. These books may also possibly be the reason over 95% of YA I’ve seen in recent years, both published and aspiring to be published, is first-person present tense.

4. Veronica Roth. No interest in post-apocalyptic YA, and I’m quite annoyed at how the word dystopian has come to mean something completely different from the classic definition in recent years. When I think of a dystopia, I think of a book like Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World, We. Not a story set in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

5.  Stephen King. I know I should branch out and read more outside of historical and classic world literature, though I’ve never felt moved to read any of his books yet. At some point, I probably should.

6. Danielle Steel. I’m glad modern romance writers have evolved past the kind of formulaic fluff that used to be the norm, and that the genre has developed a much better reputation. I prefer my romances to be intelligently-written, not lightweight beach reads.

7. Anne Rice. Just not interested in the types of things she writes, though I’m interested in the recent books she’s written from the POV of Jesus after hearing them praised and discussed on one of the Ask Sister podcasts on the A Nun’s Life blog. I’m not Christian myself, but I love studying world religions.

8. V.C. Andrews. Yeah, not gonna touch that stuff with a ten-foot pole.

9. Diana Gabaldon. I know I should totally get around to reading her one of these days, since it’s so rare to find other historical writers who aren’t afraid to go well over 300 pages in this day and age.

10. Nicholas Sparks. Not really into those kinds of stories.

I could easily write a list like this for popular actors and musical acts I’ve never seen or listened to as well. I’ve never had modern tastes, and am far more familiar with writers, actors, and bands of prior generations.