My Complicated Relationship With Spoilers | Bookish Reflections

Hi everyone,
Nah. It's not really complicated. I love spoilers! There I said it.

I'm actually kinda nervous writing about this, because 80% of readers I know hate spoilers. It's such a "bad reader" kinda thing. But, I have to talk about this because when I review books I sometimes talk about twists I didn't see coming but really I already know because I read the ending or I skimmed read the whole book before actually starting the book and reading word for word.

It's just a thing that I do and have always done. My IRL reading buddy--my mom--does it too.

There are exceptions, though, like, when it comes to mystery novels. I don't want to know who the killer or the baddie is because I want to see if I can work it out for myself before the characters do.

But, for certain spoilers I do go out of my way to find them. For certain books, before I commit to reading them or buying them--I will go looking for spoilers on Goodreads, or watch spoiler-y review videos on YouTube, or look for stuff of Tumblr. And, yeah, when I have the book on hand, I often read the last few chapters or skim the entire book before I start actually reading the book. I even do this with movies on Netflix or AmazonPrime--there are times where I'd skip to the last 5 minutes just to see how the movie ends before I commit to watching the whole thing.

My spoiler hating friends are probably like, why do you do this? Doesn't it take away your enjoyment of the book or movie?

Now, I don't spoil myself for everything. Like I said, I avoid spoilers for mysteries and thrillers. However, when it comes to love triangles (who ends up with who), character deaths, who wins the battle, what makes an ending is bittersweet, etc. For those kind of spoilers, I GOTTA KNOW.

And, no, these spoilers do not take away my enjoyment of the book. Spoilers actually add to my enjoyment because I'm not stressing over what's going to happen. I can anticipate what's going to happen, so my brain can shut up and focus on what is happening on the page I'm reading.

As for character deaths, I hate when I get attached to a character only for them to die in the end. If I knew a character was going to die, I can prepare myself and it's not such a big blow to my emotions. Sometimes these emotional blows from books affect me for days, and I'd rather not have that weighing me down.

Books can have a big emotional impact on me and sometimes spoilers help me deal. It's for my own mental health, you know?

HOWEVER, I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT when I am not looking for spoilers and some shithead tweets a spoiler for a book or movie or doesn't give a warning when including spoilers in a review. That's completely different--I love spoilers, but I want them on my terms.

How do you feel about spoilers?

Happy reading,
Michelle