I seem to be rather odd in fandom in general in that I don’t care about spoilers — in fact, I actually quite like them. That puts me in line with what studies suggest, though: the University of California, San Diego did a study a while ago which took stories and gave them to naive participants (i.e. participants who hadn’t read the stories before) in two categories. One lot of the participants got a spoiler paragraph first; the other lot didn’t. And with stories that have ironic twists, mystery stories and literary stories, every single one showed the same result.

People enjoyed the stories more when they knew what was coming.

Without looking at the studies, I have a couple of theories about that. One is simply anxiety. I am an anxiously inclined person and I can end up utterly stymied with a book, not wanting to read further because I know something bad is about to happen… and I don’t know if things turn out right, whether I should be hopeful or not. But when I know the outcome, I can read the story fine. Sometimes when I’m struggling to read something (or even watch something), I ask for spoilers, or flip to the back of the book.

But there’s a lot more people without that kind of anxiety, I would guess, and for them I have a theory too — connected to one reason I like to reread books: you know what’s going to happen, and you can see the skill of the author in shaping the outcome. If it’s a question of Chekhov’s gun, you can spot the gun and feel clever; you’re reading on a different level. You can still be surprised by how things turn out, but probably you already know whether it’s the kind of story you want to read or not.

The weird thing is that people pretty consistently think they don’t like spoilers, and I wonder if that’s a social thing — “you’ll never believe what’s going to happen!” The whole idea that anticipation is going to make it better.

How about you? Spoilers, no spoilers? Thinking about experimenting with this now?

And will someone please have pity and tell me whether The Winner’s Kiss ends well for Arin and Kestrel?

Reading the post from Kaitlin @ Reading is My Treasure, I found myself wondering about comfort zones and what on earth mine is. In terms of writing about books, I can be uncomfortable with talking about books that feature queer and gender related topics: I don’t control who reads this blog, and just about anyone could come along. I’m especially cagey about discussing asexuality in books, though I have reviewed a couple of books specifically on the topic (The Invisible Orientation; the essay What Do You Mean You’re Not Interested in Sex?). Mental illness and specifically anxiety is an awkward topic, too. It feels a little bit too naked — and my mother has reminded me several times to be careful about what I talk about on here, lest my goal of getting into medical school be harmed by it.

And, given that my mother reads this blog, talking about books which contain sex or other mature themes can feel a bit weird. (But not quite as weird as the inevitable times when, watching NCIS with my grandfather, there’d be a naked scene or something sexual. Gaaaah!)

But what don’t I read? Mainstream YA, I guess; John Green’s books don’t interest me much, and I know that The Fault in Our Stars wouldn’t be a good fit for me, given the subject matter. But then again, I have read Rainbow Rowell’s books, like Eleanor & Park. I have baulked sometimes about YA series like Marie Rutkoski’s Winner’s Trilogy, and I’m still pretty sure no one is going to drag me into reading Kiera Cass’ The Selection. I’m not sure if that’s a comfort zone thing, though — it’s more of a lack of interest, and reading the first chapter of The Winner’s Curse convinced me to try it (and I enjoyed it greatly).

Hard sci-fi, maybe? But I have enjoyed it sometimes, and I’m willing enough to try classic works like Larry Niven’s, even though I know the books contain frankly cringeworthy moments in the representation of women and other minorities. I’m fairly okay with classifying it as ‘of its time’, and not letting it hurt now. (Even if I do comment on it.) And I happily read actual science books, so the issue only really arises when the science is technobabble and I just can’t stay interested.

Romance? Well, that definitely used to be a thing I’d insist I wasn’t interested in. Sometimes my fantasy/sci-fi would steer into romance, and I’d make all kinds of disclaimers about that. But now I cheerfully read Georgette Heyer and Mary Stewart, and abandoned the whole idea of ‘guilty pleasures‘.

I think, for me, my ‘comfort zone’ might be less about what I’m willing to try, and more about what I’m willing to let people see me try. If I wasn’t blogging, would I pick up anything different? I’d like to say no, but maybe I would.

Which seems to me an excellent reason to maybe pick up Kiera Cass’ The Selection, just to find out if maybe I would like it. (And get round to reading Anna and the French Kiss.)