This is a little embarrassing for me to admit. I mean, I'm one of the people that other people come to for advice about books, at least within my circle of friends. So when I say that I sometimes get a little confused when trying to classify the genre of a book, I hang my head in shame.But I think it's sort of understandable, and I doubt I'm the only person who wonders about this. Genres are labels, and labels are a big part of how people think about the world in general.
Sometimes it's pretty easy to decide where to put a book. But I was just writing my review for Dreaming Anastasia and I stopped dead when trying to tag it with the genre. Is it historical because it deals with the Romanovs? Is it a folklore spinoff because it uses the character Baba Yaga? Maybe it's urban fantasy, since it talks about magic and the supernatural in a modern setting. I ended up tagging it all of the above. Song of the Sparrow is a young adult novel about Arthurian times that is told in verse. Would I tag that folklore, historical, or poetry?
What about romances? Sometimes the romance in a story is a fairly significant part of the book, but there's enough other plot going on that I don't want to shove the book into the romance box and leave it there. I think calling a book a "romance" turns off a lot of readers who would really enjoy the story. On the other hand, I don't want to just label it "science fiction" or "urban fantasy" without pointing out that the romance is a significant part of the story.
Then there are a few cases where I'm not even sure how to define a genre itself. For example, do ever wonder what the difference is between paranormal and urban fantasy? As I understand it, paranormal fiction deals with ghosts, psychics, vampires, (faeries?) and such. Urban fantasy describes fiction with fantastical elements taking place in an otherwise mundane setting. Is it just me, or can you see how these overlap quite a bit? And what, in the name of all things bookish, is steampunk?
And so, my friends, I am confused. Does anyone else ever wonder about this? Please comment with your own confusions, clarifications, or even your mockery.
13 comments:
Oh! Paranormal and Urban Fantasy confuse me too! I just tend to tag everything as Urban Fantasy if it's not actual *fantasy* yet is set in current day times with supernatural things. Probably wrong, but, eh, I'm running a bookstore here just a blog! ;)
I seem to see more books called "paranormal" when they are in the romance section of the store, rather than the fantasy section or "horror" section (which Chapigo has on one shelf, mostly Stephen King and Dean Koontz and it's always next to the erotica section for some reason and I hate looking for books there because there is ALWAYS some creepy old man reading the erotica books when I do. ICK!).
Um... sorry to ramble. ;) All this to say - yes! I share your confusion!
You aren't the only one confused where the line is drawn. I think of Urban Fantasy as fantasy set in a modern world and there may or may not be a HEA. PNR to me can be in any time period and will always have a HEA. I know this simplifies it a bit, but it works for me. :)
I tried to find the article I read awhile back on this subject but couldn't. But here are a couple of links that might help you or at the very least give you some interesting reading:
http://urbanfantasy.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/urban-fantasy-vs-paranormal-romance/
http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2009/08/05/paranormal-romance-vs-urban-fantasy/
http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2008/09/09/quiz-paranormal-romance-or-urban-fantasy-by-jackie-kessler/
I'm also confused by the genre lines and, to be perfectly honest, have been turned off because of the label applied to a particular book. I wish there was a different way to identify books, music, etc.
There's so many more labels today as well. Fantasy used to all get lumped into the science-fiction section, while horror was dumped in with the mystery/thrillers. But each of these categories has splintered into many new genres and there's a lot of overlapping.
And I hate the 'romance' tag as well - I always think Harlequin when I hear that word.
L. Diane Wolfe “Spunk On A Stick”
www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
Man oh man, I know the feeling. I try to tag all my reviews with the different genre's they are in. But sometimes I feel like I'm missing something, or that they really don't belong in that category. Sometimes I just click and pray, hoping that I get the right one. Other times I look at what the library I work at has the book cataloged under. Sometimes that helps ... but most of the times not.
I totally feel ya. I usually use the category Amazon has it listed as but then I use the labels that feel right to me.
PS Love the picture :)
Now I'm confused, too...
Yeah I get confused to trying to decide what to tag some books.
It is all a bit confusing. Paranormal was a designation that's been around for awhile, and Urban Fantasy (the phrase) is a fairly new one. I consider urban fantasy to include modern settings with magical/supernatural stories. Paranormal could probably be set in any time, but they do overlap. It's just like life, shifting boundaries with lots of grey rather than black or white. How's that for a metaphor? or is it a simile? I don't know, it's late and I've been up all night after a horrifically hot Saturday. :)
Lol! I'm so happy I'm not the only one suffering here.
Thanks for the links, Donna. That helped a lot.
I'm with you! I have some of the same questions, even with well-established genres, like the difference between fantasy and science fiction (my husband says if it has magic, it's automatically fantasy).
And I agree that sometimes labeling a book in a certain genre will turn some people off. For instance, an amazing book with a great plot and character development that happens to have a time travel element - call it science fiction and some people won't read any further (I found this to be true with my favorite book of all-time - Replay by Ken Grimwood). I recently reviewed a love story but didn't call it a romance for exactly the reasons you described.
So confusing!
Sue
Yeah, they can be confusing. The funny part is that it's more a reader construction. Librarians never really want to put labels on books, because writers don't (usually) have a label in mind when they write. I tag things according to anything that might fit. There are definitely not enough labels/tags in existence :)
I have the same problem a lot of the time, when I want to label a book and when I look if a certain book is for me. I see how it's labelled, and there's certain labels/genres I just tend to shy away from.
Fantasy/Paranormal are one of my hardest ones to classify, because to me paranormal is a branch of fantasy, or so I thought, when I tried looking into paranormal books it was mostly romance and romance novels just aren't for me, because like others said romance to me makes me think Harlequin. And that's a no no for me. Which is why I kind of veered away from paranormal novels, because everyone was attached to this romance tag and even the covers looked a little Harlequiny.
So now if I have trouble with a genre of book I look it up online, see what other bloggers use, see what a differentiation of that genre means, and check out sites like LibraryThing. I also label things my way too. So best advice would be see what others tag it, see what you think it should be after you read it compared to other books in the same genre and tag it that way.
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