I’m someone who’s not terrified of spoilers, so sometimes writing reviews is particularly hard. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone else, because we seem to a community that avoids spoilers at all costs.
I find this weird because I didn’t have many books as a kid and used to read the same books over and over again, obviously knowing the spoilers, and still enjoying the story.
So when I went seeking spoilers for several books last year, trying to find out if what I suspected was the truth, I was frustrated by absolutely no one spoiling anything.
In Soulprint I wanted to know if a particular character had the soulprint of another and despite clicking through lots of reviews, even those marked with spoilers, no one mentioned it.
In The Third Twin, I wanted to know the resolution of the story and yes, once again I was thwarted, despite looking at lots of reviews.
Why was no one spoiling anything? Why couldn’t I find the answers even when I went looking at reviews that hated these books?
Are spoilers really that scary?
Sometimes a spoiler can make me want to read a book.
Take Red Queen for example. I dismissed it as just another fluffy YA high fantasy and I tried to stay away from the hype, but one day I found myself on a website listing ten big twists in recent YA books (I’ve looked, but I can’t find this article! Sorry!). Being the type who’s OK with spoiling things if I’m looking it up for myself (Star Wars: The Force Awakens was MAJORLY hard to find any spoilers pre-release), I read through this list only to come across the major twist/spoiler near the end of Red Queen. It wasn’t your typical fluffy YA fantasy and I instantly I thought the twist sounded so cool, and I bought the book.
In that case, I needed to know the spoiler to convince me to read the book.
Why as a community are we so afraid of spoilers?
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About Nemo
A lover of kittens and all things sparkly, Nemo has a degree in English Literature and specialises in reviewing contemporary, paranormal, mystery/thriller, historical, sci-fi and fantasy Young Adult fiction. She is especially drawn to novels about princesses, strong female friendships, magical powers, and assassins.
Hubby of Nemo
Personally it depends on the material. Some things I’m fine with having spoiled… But others… Like Star Wars, annoyed me no end when I got a direct message off of a friend who spoiled it.
Nemo
If I’m looking for spoilers but can’t find them, that’s frustrating.
otakutwins
I think we just want to be shocked as to what happens 🙂 spoiling can lessen the shock, I think. But sometimes I want to know spoilers because I NEED to catch up on a TV show, or I need to remember what happened in the last five books xD or, I just want to see what the big twist was in a book I wasn’t really interested in. Spoilers can be a good and a bad thing, I guess 🙂
Nemo
I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from with the idea of enjoying being shocked, but that discounts the sheer number of bloggers who re-read (or who WANT to re-read and don’t have time). Finding spoilers for previous books to jog your memory is another reason why we shouldn’t be afraid of them. Spoilers seem to be like the big bad boogeyman in the book blogging community.