Bookish Musings - Neglecting Books

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Stacie is talking about the books she has been neglecting and how much pressure she has been putting on her self to read..

So lately I've been thinking a lot about what books I've been reading, how I've been putting pressure on myself and the book's I've been neglecting. I know Amanda over at Book Badger did a discussion that mention something of the same sort recently, and though it didn't fuel this discussion, it got me thinking way more about it. So today my question for you is, since starting your book review blog have you changed the type of books you read to better suit the rest of the community and have neglected books that came out before the year you started blogging. I know for certain that I have.

Since I started bloggin a few years ago, a lot more genre's have been opened up to me and books that I wouldn't have heard about or I wouldn't have looked twice at. I stuck to my comfort zones which were fantasy and some adult contemporary novels. I very rarely read anything else, though people would recommend me all sorts constantly, I was still reluctant. My change in genre taste  really came with Sarah Dessen I guess, before I picked up her books, I didn't like YA contemporary because I found some of the main characters to be too unbelievable and unrelatable. I found that the stories were to focused around the love interest and everything was always so fast paced and too in your face. But with her books it wasn't like that, the story was the main focus not the love, although it played a big part too. I've read a large number of her books and I've found a part of all her female characters, in my self. My eyes were opened a little and it was all up hill from there

As well as YA contemporary I found a new favoruite genre of mine, dystopian. I'm sure I would have found it along the way somewhere, but with up and coming hype for The Hunger Games movies, the first one, I picked up the 3 books and was hooked. Since then I've read a lot of great books with a post apocalyptic feel, and I've read some stinkers. But the point I'm trying to make is , thanks to the bloggin community I've been introduced to a lot of genres. But did that come at a price?  did I lose something along the way?. 

Yes, I did. The amount of great books coming out year hasn't changed since I was a teenager, but back then I wasn't having them all pushed on me begging me to buy them. The problem I face now is I see a few book's each month that are coming out that I like the look of, I'll make note of them to buy and if there isn't anything that month I'm getting books that have come out within the year. Books that I have wanted to read since a teenager, almost all the great YA books that came out before 2010 are overshadowed and forgotten about.  I know Amanda has felt like people want to read reviews of recent books not ones that have been out a for while, thus putting pressure on herself, but I don't think it's that with me. Sometimes I almost  feel like I have to read the new books in order to have something to talk about with others, and because the majority of bloggers are talking about books that came out within the year, the books I'm reading  about and wanting were published 2011+.

I keep telling myself that I'll pick up a golden oldie, that this day will be different, but then I look through what I have and pick up something that's not old, something that I tell myself will just be a quick read. Then I get hooked, I love the story and want to read something of the same genre after, but it's never something older than a few years. And the likes of NetGalley doesn't help, not only do I see constant books that I want (and request) but it's hard not to ask for the book's if you've read the previous one in a series and your dying for them. No... it doesn't help at all. It's a viscous cycle for me, one that I'm not set to break any time soon it seems.

So I'll be taking part in my own personal challenge. I'm going to try an read between 20 book's that came out between 2005 and 2010 and 10 books that came out between 2000 and 2005. Why do you ask? because these book below have been sitting on my self for a long long time, in fact some of them caught my eye when I was but 15. I think it's about time I read them don't you? (all pictures are links)

2000 - 2005

2005 - 2010

What books do you want to dust off and read? :)