I recently started following the meme, Thoughtful Thursday, hosted by Reading Is Fun Again.  Similar to the Blog Hop, a book-related discussion question is posted each week.  Here’s today’s question!

Do you prefer to read books with a male or female protagonist? Does the author’s gender matter?

This is probably going to sound like a very safe, very PC answer, but I honestly prefer books to have strong characters of both genders.  I tend to get more excited about amazing female characters, but I think that’s largely about there still being some deficit in that regard (aside from the recent surge in dystopian YA…)  Sadly, it still seems like an event to find a capable female character who plays an active role in her own story, all the more so if that story is a retelling of, say, a fairy tale, where that was not the case in the past.

I do feel like, at the end of the day, people are people, and characters should be people too, and whether they are male people or female people is secondary to whether they are complex, interesting, believable people that I want to spend the length of a book with.  The question of gender only becomes a really big thing for me when one gender is notably missing.

I read lots of books with great female characters last year, but my favorite character all year was Samwise Gamgee–but it still bothers me that there are so few women in Middle Earth.

As to the question of the protagonist and author being (or not) the same gender, mostly it doesn’t matter to me.  I’d be rather hypocritical if I did care a lot, considering my novel has a male protagonist!  But see above, people are people.  I’m not the same gender as Jasper, and I’m also not a wandering adventurer, or an orphan, or illiterate–it’s all imagined!

All that said, I am more likely to look sideways at a book if the main focus is the protagonist’s character development, rather than plot or worldbuilding or relationships, and the author is a different gender.  I’m not saying that can’t be done well!  Just that I’m slightly more skeptical because the author has more to overcome to do it well.  But I try to keep an open mind.

Your turn!  Do you strongly prefer to read one gender or the other, or does it not matter that much to you?

Don’t forget you can enter the KidLit Giveaway and win a signed copy of my novel!  Contest ends May 18th.

I’ve mentioned once or twice that I was doing a give away, right?  😉  The period to enter ended yesterday, so today I have results!  And the winner chosen from a metaphorical hat is…

 Emma!

If you didn’t win (or missed entering!) there’s another event coming up later in May to celebrate Children’s Book Week–so stay tuned!

On to the other business of the day…I recently heard about a new-to-me book blogging meme, Thoughtful Thursday, hosted by Reading Is Fun Again.  Similar to the Blog Hop, a book-related discussion question is posted each week.  Here’s today’s question!

What features do you like in a book cover? Do you like plain covers? Do you like covers with drawings on them? Do you like covers with photographs on them? Do you like movie-tie in covers?

Well, I gush about pretty covers probably about as much as anyone…Wildwood Dancing and Entwined both come immediately to mind.  But a pretty cover won’t necessarily be right for every book…and mostly this question has led me to think about what I expect from a cover.  Mostly, I use covers to tell me about the genre and the style of the book.  And sure, plot summaries do that too, but as they say, a picture is worth… (I actually don’t think that applies all the time, but that’s a different story!)

I know they say we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I think it works to a point.  Does the cover feature a girl in a Regency-era dress?  (historical fiction!)  Is there a dragon?  Are there pretty fairies?  How about any icons from fairy tales? (fantasy!) Or is there a couple locked in an embrace, possibly with faces obscured but the man’s chest visible?  (and that would be half of the covers in the Romance section…)

So much for genre, which I suppose most books are labeled with anyway–but covers are a fun way to find out!  As to style…if a book has a cartoony cover, I expect it to be lighter than, say, a stark cover with a military symbol (Hunger Games, anyone?)  I will probably expect some romance out of a cover that has a long sweeping skirt somewhere on it, and I definitely expect excitement if there are dragons and swords.  I know covers get it wrong sometimes, especially when it comes to style, but I do think they get it right more often than not.

This is all before I read a book.  After I read the book–then I want accuracy!  In style, of course, but also in the details.  I’m the kind of reader who will notice if the cat’s eyes are the wrong color, or the main character shouldn’t be carrying the sword and the spear at the same time, because of chapter five…and so on.

As to that final question up there, on movie tie-ins–I do have a few books on my shelves with movie tie-in covers, but I’m only willing to buy them if I really liked the movie.  If I disliked the movie, I will always pay more money for the non-tie-in version.

I also tend to be a loyalist about covers.  If I get very attached to a library copy of a book, when I go to buy it sometimes I want that same cover.  Even if I can acknowledge that other covers are more accurate/prettier/etc.  And I can be ruthless about covers.  If I somehow ended up owning a book with a cover I hate, I re-cover paperbacks and get rid of hardback dust jackets.

All right, so much for my rambling cover thoughts!  I’m not sure I exactly answered the question, but I think I covered 😉 the subject.  What do you look for in covers?

And for some cover-related news on my next novel, visit again tomorrow!