This week’s prompt is a tricky one. I don’t really keep track of titles I don’t like, though I know there have been lots over the years. Here are a few I might have given a different title if it had been up to me, but I know there are ones I liked less that I’m forgetting!
All four of these are in here because they’re long and awkward. They’re not bad, I mean they do speak to the content of each book, they’re just a pain.I don’t really have alternative titles to offer – I probably would have just shortened the first one to The Readers of Broken Wheel, and I liked the movie title of Love, Simon. The other two I have no idea, just something shorter.
It’s possible The Wife Between Us mostly annoys me because the book itself annoyed me. Ask Again, Yes just never made sense to me. I got all the way to the end of the book with no idea how the title related to the story. Crime Seen is an odd one – at first I liked the word play, but over time it soured on me. And The Cuckoo’s Calling just never appealed to me.
Both of these just seemed like nothing titles. They don’t really tell you anything about the story, and the people in them are just like in every other literary fiction novel, so yeah, they’re normal and ordinary, but how does that make anything about the book stand out? I give Ordinary People more of a pass because it’s named after a John Legend song, but still. It doesn’t help that they both came out so close together, either.
Not my best week, sorry for the less than thrilling content! Help me out – which book titles would you change? Any ideas for other titles for these ones?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.
I’m also not big on the title for The Cuckoo’s Calling. It’s just kind of…flat
Interesting titles I’m not familiar with. https://pmprescott.blogspot.com/
Another vote for Guernsey. I think that for books with long titles, it’s better that there be like a main title and something added to that. The End and Other Beginnings: Stories from the Future is an über long title, but at least it can be shortened to The End and Other Beginnings. Which is still long, LOL.
Simon and the Potato Peel Society kill me because they’re so hard to say. They’re too long! I just refer to them the way I did here.
My TTT.
It’s interesting isn’t it that some of the titles you mention are books that have been bestsellers so it must be very much the case that works for one person doesn’t work for another. My own pet peeve is book titles that get referred to by acronyms because I often don’t know what they stand for.
Interesting choices for this week’s TTT! I honestly completely blanked on the prompt–it was just too difficult for my tired brain to handle 😂I totally agree with the long and awkward book titles, although I do like the Literary Guernsey title, it is quite a mouth full lol 🙈
Yeah, those last two books do have bland titles.
My TTT.
Long awkward titles make me roll my eyes and are a bit of a turn off for me.
And yes, those last two are a bit… Bleh.
Cora | http://www.teapartyprincess.co.uk/
You are right about the long titles; they are awkward. I get very annoyed when people give books clever titles that don’t work into the story. And Normal People…Ordinary People? Isn’t that why we read? To get away from that?
This prompt is working me into a frenzy, I’m afraid.
These are great! I had such a hard time with this theme. I had to change it up. 🙂
I sometimes think long titles make them memorable. I like all the long title examples you used. My TTT