Fun topic!!! Like @SpiderWeb says, for me it’s all about the story. A good story transcends everything and I don’t pay a lot of attention to genre. I have some likes and dislikes in most genres. That said I have noticed some patterns and reading more slowly in Japanese has made these preferences more obvious to me:
Favorite elements
- Cozy mystery - I enjoy something with great puzzle, mystery and novelty aspects, but safe in the knowledge that nothing in there will ruin my day (some things in my least favorites list below)
- Short stories - especially in a foreign language as it’s just so satisfying to finish something. I find it’s a great way to explore new authors and uncomfortable topics in bite size amounts. Or even a feel good story that might be too sweet for a full novel length can be more enjoyable as a short story.
- Adventure - I like themes of stretching limits and exploring.
- Biography - I just love peaking into other people’s lives. A well-written biography normally has a lot of elements I love in other genres - a life story is often a collection of short stories and adventure after all.
- Literary fiction - I mean the stories that just make me think about life and how it all works, and become more aware of and question my beliefs.
- Comedy / Humorous daily life stories - Just some innocent entertainment and laughs. Like the book version of Calvin and Hobbes - sign me up
- 癒やし系 - one of my favorite discoveries in Japanese. I’m not sure I’ve really approached this in prose, though, so far just in manga.
I’m neutral on Sci-Fi and Fantasy, it totally depends on the story for me.
Least favorite elements
- Crime - eek, I have a hard time stomaching violence as entertainment
- Revenge stories - if the writer is asking me to empathise with revenge I go into a tailspin on ethical philosophising and end up angry or in despair. Revenge that is more nuanced is ok if incidental or viewed objectively. There are some great books that include revenge thoughtfully. But most approaches to revenge follow social norms without examination, which includes quite a high tolerance to a certain amount of “justified” revenge violence. It’s quite a normal widespread human instinct but I want to live in a world where humanity grows up past that, and books handling revenge according to current norms remind me I am not in that world. Enter despair.
- Rough stuff - if the description needs blurred trigger warnings, it’s probably content I don’t want to dwell on. You can probably guess I’m not a fan of the Terrible people doing Terrible Things others have mentioned although I find it incredibly amusing that it’s a recognisable genre
- Horror - I have really vivid dreams, so although I found it entertaining as a kid, I value my sleep too much now
- Romance - not sure why, but I just get bored. If it’s incidental, fine. But if the whole point of the book/story is the romance, I check out.
- School setting - not something I would have mentioned except at the beginner level there is a lot of that in WK clubs and it holds little interest for me. As others have said, though, I do have some exceptions. But as a general rule it’s a - meh.
