Maybe I’m all alone in these feelings among the book blogging crowd, but I’m curious, does anyone else feel at least slightly panicky when someone asks who your favorite author is/authors are?
I know what some of you are thinking: Oh yes, I do! I have too many to choose from! Well, good for you, but I feel I sort of have the opposite problem.
If you ask me who my favorite author is, I would probably say of all-time probably C.S. Lewis, but right now my biggest amount of love is for Marissa Meyer. I might also mention how much I love Leigh Bardugo, how much Jon Acuff’s last two books have meant to me, and how much I appreciate Jane Austen’s stories even if I don’t love her writing style. After that, I feel I kind of draw a blank, and here’s the other kicker… I still feel like I can’t completely claim these as favorites sometimes.
Leigh Bardugo, yes, as long as I continuing loving what she writes, makes complete sense. I own physical copies of all her books, they are all signed, I met her, and I rated of each books 4.5 stars. That’s pretty consistent with loving someone’s work, I think. Marissa Meyer, on the other hand, I rated her first two books 4 stars each, only own e-book copies of them, but I gave Cress 5 stars, own a physical copy of, and love so much I will push The Lunar Chronicles on anyone who will listen. I think with Marissa, I just love the world she created, I adore every.single.character. (well, all the good/main ones anyway, but there are quite a few so that is an achievement!) and I just think she’s getting better and better with her writing. So even if I don’t have all the swag to be her #1 fan I think it’s legit to say that I love her.
C.S. Lewis. Maybe I mention him to sound intellectual. I wasn’t wild about Till We Have Faces though everything I had heard about it before reading was positive. I don’t even love all the Narnia books (but the ones I do love, I love a lot!). I have read a lot of excerpts from several of his non-fiction works though (I have yet to sit down and read one of them from cover to cover though) and he has made an impact on my spiritual life. So while I don’t consistently love all his fiction (not to mention I haven’t read it all yet), his non-fiction has impacted me, even though I haven’t even read all of those books either.
But all this babbling leads me to my next point, which is that while sometimes I really love something an author writes, it doesn’t mean I do love/will love everything they write. I adored Diana Peterfreund’s For Darkness Shows the Stars and Across a Star-Swept Sea but have hardly any interest in any of her other books because they don’t really sound like me. Now, maybe one day I’ll read them and realize I was wrong, that’s possible, but those two books are SO ME that I don’t feel like the others could measure up. I really liked Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina because of the characters, but that’s the only book I can go off of, and I have no way of knowing if I’ll love her next cast of characters just as much.
And all this talk stems from an email BookBub sent me letting me know I could receive author alerts about when my favorite authors’ e-books go on sale.
But my absolute faves I would rather go buy their physical books. What about authors I haven’t actually even read yet but I’m curious about? What if I want to know when their book is on sale so I can check it out? Why do you have to insist they’re my favorite, BookBub?!
Never mind that BookBub is a website, not a person, and they aren’t actually forming an opinion on me based on my “favorite authors.”
The only question in the bookish world that makes me even more panicky is, “What’s your favorite book?” Really?! Favorite book ever?! Now really, how am I supposed to choose?!
How do you feel about picking a favorite author? Do you have a lot of favorites, or are you like me and feel like you can only truly claim a few?