Unanswered Book Questions: Because no matter how much we read, we don’t always have answers

Posted on by Ashleigh

unanswered-bookish-questions

All the words we read, all the pages we flip through, all the books we collect and hoard. They bring a lot of questions, don’t they? And even though we read all these words, we don’t always find our answers in them.

comfortable-position

The age old frustration of every bookworm everywhere.

Can someone please just figure out a way we cat sit for hours on end without our arms/legs/hands/back/neck/SOMETHING aching after 10 minutes?

No matter what position we sit in, there’s no doubt a lot of fidgeting involved. Wiggling around every few minutes to re-adjust. Losing that just-right feeling as soon as you need to turn a page. Or thinking you’ve found the perfect position for once, sitting there for hours, only to finally move and realise half your body has gone numb with pins and needles.

WHYYYY?!?!

movie-producers

QUIT RUINING OUR BELOVED STORIES, PRODUCERS.

If you want to take a well loved story and put it on a screen, you need to do it well or we bookworms will REVOLT.

Yes, we know things will need to be changed since it needs to fit into a 2 hour slot. But really? Some adaptations are just not even the story, it’s a completely new thing. How can they mess it up so much? It’s literally already written for them!

obsess

People obsess over musicians. Comic books. Movies. Celebrities. Shopping. Art. Literally anything. So why is it weird to obsess over books?

People will say “oh but it’s not real!” So what? Books bring so much to our lives, make us feel so much and even look aesthetically pleasing, how could we NOT obsess over them?

names

ALL THE EPIC NAMES. ALL THE NAMES I CAN’T PRONOUNCE.

I love them, I really do. They sound amazing. Just to name a few…

Kvothe. Daenerys. Melisande. Feyre. Lazarus. Elrond. Arcus. Zoya. Arcturus. Twylla. Lysandra. Athos. Kell. Bellatrix. Agnieszka.

My spellcheck is having a fit with that sentence, let me tell you.

I mean, they sound epic. I’d love to have a funky name that would suit a fantasy book. But I have to google to pronunciation for half the books I read. I haven’t even got a clue where to start with that last name because I haven’t read Uprooted yet. But woah.

Honestly, I’m more surprised now when there’s a relatively normal name for a main fantasy character.

come-up-with-names

Speaking of which, how do names like that come to be?

Do authors spend hours researching, going in depth about meanings, folklore, origins. I know quite a few are inspired by different languages.

But there’s some that just see completely new.  Do they mash two names together? Use a name generator then improvise? Play scrabble with letter blocks? Let their cat walk across the keyboard and hope for the best? Make noises till something sounds funky?

sandalwood

I swear, every single time a male character enters the story for the first time, a whiff of sandalwood promptly follows them.

Is that the universal scent of male? I know a nice smelling person is more attractive, but surely they can’t all have the same natural scent?

“natural scent” is a very strange phrase to say 

Is there no other typically male scent that smells nice or something? What’s so great about sandalwood?  Do they all carry little shavings of sandalwood in their pockets?

describe-scents

And anyway, how do natural scents even managed to be described in the first place? The descriptions are so specific –

“He smelt like sandalwood and clean air, with the faint scent of Irish Spring soap lingering on his recently washed skin”

OR

“She smelt like Vanilla, though the faint scent of her coconut shampoo caught with every breeze”

Just…what? Men are forest and women aren’t cakes. And how do people manage to specifically describe what someone smells like. Sure, they might smell nice, but to choose out specific notes…how long did they stand there sniffing them?

girl-problems

Now, I’m not saying I want details. Periods aren’t exactly a nice part of nature. But come on. SO many books have kickass female main characters, and yet I think I’ve only seen periods mentioned by one author. Over YEARS of reading. As if it wouldn’t be a hinderance, or at least an inconvenience at some point in the story.

They’ll go on journeys for months, trekking around in forests or abandoned wastelands carrying nothing with them, not even food. What happens in those situations? Do they have to find a store and spend some of their very little money? Do they have to rip up clothing and wash/reuse the scraps? It’s a pretty grim thing to think about, but the fact it’s just passed over bothers me more than it should.

new-release

Well, this is one of those unanswered questions where you probably can think of an answer, we just don’t accept them.

“It’s because you’re waiting. Waiting always feels longer” YES BUT WHYYYY

How do the months whizz by without a flash, and yet it feels like 94 years until the next book is published. THE HORROR.

cover-changes

In fact, it’s probably a good job we don’t know who that person is. I’m sure we all hold that grudge close at hearts.

HOW DARE THEY RUIN THE AESTHETICS OF MY SHELVES. HOW DARE THEY CHANGE THINGS WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION. THE OUTCRY. THE HORROR. THE –

*ahem*

I mean…what a ridiculous idea.

So there we have it!

Those are just a few of the unanswered bookish questions we bookworms probably think over way too often.

Do any of these questions in particular bother you more than the others?

Do you have any answers for them?

Are there any unanswered book questions I’ve missed (no doubt there is)?

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Until next time…

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61 thoughts on “Unanswered Book Questions: Because no matter how much we read, we don’t always have answers”

  1. Great post. I can’t even describe how bothersome reading all those unique, but unpronounceable names are! I just end up making some other simpler name for these characters and make a fool of myself when I say them in public haha.
    But really, thanks for sharing this.

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      1. In my case though, i hate interrupting my reading and so just have to move on with a made up name which is mostly just the first letter of their names. 🙂

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  3. I agree with everything you just said! I mean, how do all the characters know what each other smell like?!? HOW are they that good at detecting scents? Isn’t that just odd?!?!?

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      1. Yeah, I think so too, and I also agree with the other things about. . . you know “that time” as it seems like it’s just nonexistent? I just wonder, “how?!” the entire time

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  5. Yes. Yep. I definitely ask myself some of these at least once a day. I mean, those names are A STRUGGLE, as well as the dreaded position. And I went into a fit of laughter when I read the one about natural scents hahaha! I can’t do that for the life of me.
    Great post 😁

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    1. Thank you Fadwa!
      I always end up having to google the names, and the amount of fidgeting involved with reading makes me wonder how people say bookworms just sit around all day. NO – it’s a full body workout.
      The scent thing just confuses me every time! I don’t know ANYBODY who can just pick out scents so specifically 😆

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  6. Ha! This really made me laugh. Imagine a fantasy story where Malcolm and Janet have to go on an epic quest to Tir-al-Agoth (why do all place names start with Tir? Does it mean mountain or something?) eating their honey cakes (always honey cakes, no other confectionery allowed) and laden down with skins of water, swords and a bundle of rags for Janet’s time of the month. Hilarious. Also, how do authors get round their spell checkers every time they type a character name or location? It just took me five minutes to type Tir-al-Agoth! Surely this gets beyond annoying?

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    1. I love that scenario ahahah 😆 And I know! Their spellchecks must look insane on screen. Even when you “add to dictionary”, it only happens again next time you open the document. Must be so frustrating!

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          3. That actually makes so much more sense than random smells like wood and sunshine. XD Sunshine is always so abstract, I always feel like they should just describe the actual smell (like dust or cut grass or whatever they want ‘sunshine’ to mean) and not a romanticised concept XD

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    1. Thank you Olivia!
      Names aren’t usually a problem for me, but I’m always having to correct my friend because she just makes up her own noise to be honest 😆 Sometimes I have to resort to google though!

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  10. I have given myself real neck problems from bad positioning. Now I pile up pillows for a stand.

    Natural scents prior to the mid-twentieth century were not always pleasant. People just did not smell good in the old days before regular bathing and deodorants. Like a hippy trying to cover their odour with pachoulli oil, it just does not work!

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    1. So have I, I always end up with this weird twinge-pain in my shoulder from an old injury when I don’t have my neck positioned properly.

      And that’s very true! To be fair the more historical fiction books I read, they’re quite good at getting that across. But all the latest books just have the strangest descriptions of scent 😆

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  11. Yes with the Sandalwood! I swear that’s the only smell all the male characters like. Like what’s the suppose to smell like? Woods? Sandals? Forest? The females always seem to smell like coconuts or vanilla too. 🙄 awesome post!

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    1. It makes me want to know what I naturally smell like (without all the body sprays I constantly use aha). I’d be thrilled if I actually smelt like vanilla all the time!

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  13. This was such a fun post Ashleigh – I loved it 💖 Totally agree with the fantasy names. I think authors do it to get a laugh out of it, imaging what a hard time we’re having with pronunciation. Honestly I just skip over a name if it becomes too hard to say 🙈
    Then girl problems, yes please!

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  16. HAHA I can relate to so many of these! The names one! I always struggle with those epic fantasy names. It’s funny, I’m working on a fantasy novel and while looking at names I was always drawn to the weird complicated ones. I guess it’s just been ingrained in our heads to expect those out of fantasy novels hahah

    Molly @ Molly’s Book Nook

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  17. This is suuuuuch a fun post! 😀 yes to uncomfortable reading position, for me it’s either comfy position or good lighting because most of the times they don’t go hand in hand. I don’t know why but producers seem to never read the book? Like in Percy Jackson it has been said repeatedly that Annabeth is blond and has gray eyes but when The Lightning Thief came out, she’s so brunette. It’s weird 😦 AND YEEEESSSS WHY IS IT CONSIDERED WIERD TO OBSESS OVER BOOKS? Fashion bloggers are cool, lifestyle bloggers are cool, but book bloggers are nerd and weird people. Passion is passion! Also yes to names with weird pronounciation. I can’t even with the names in GoT, some of them aren’t just difficult but awful though :’) Also what’s with the scent? I can’t even recognize people’s perfume accurately. And let’s not forget voices that sound like fire or chocolate. And how people in books seem to be able to correctly read people’s mind through the eyes. Great post! ❤

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    1. Thank you! 😀
      I was so mad about them changing Annabeth’s hair in The Lightning Thief – I was so glad they dyed it for the second one!
      I don’t mind being classed as a nerd for my book loving, but I just don’t get why it’s seen as weird compared to the rest, like you said??? Like surely it should be more acceptable to obsess over a 400+ paged book (for example) that makes you feel all sorts of emotions and tells a story than a tube of lipstick? And that’s coming from someone who loves makeup 😆

      And YES! How on earth can someone sound like fire? It just makes me think they have a sore throat or something because fire crackles? I don’t know 😆

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      1. Oh yes, I thought it would be weird when they just changed the hair color like that but it turned out great! I know right! I too have accepted my status as a nerd hahaha nooooo I love makeup too! My blog used to be a book and sort of beauty blog but I ran out things to talk about because I don’t buy makeup that often 😛

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  19. This was great! It always confuses me so much when a character describes another character’s scent when they’re just walking by them. Like, how good is that nose? I can’t smell a person until they’re very very close to me. And even then, I have no idea what they smell like. But maybe all characters just have super-smelling-powers. Who knows.

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  20. True, I hate reading positions! *cries*

    Yes, yell at those movie producers because they ruined Diary of a Wimpy Kid and also Percy Jackson by mashing stuff from the next books into the first books. WHY?

    I’ve never heard anyone saying it’s weird to obsess over books but I guess they think that because they have yet to be enlightened *sniffs*

    I don’t read much fantasy but some of those names are kinda… o.O

    I’ve never heard about the sandalwood thing, maybe it’s a fantasy thing? *shrugs*

    Yeah! How can they describe natural scents when most boys I see in real life can’t even open books? (Okay, I’m just exaggerating xD)

    Hmm… that’s what I want to know. The authors seem to just forget about periods for some reason…

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  21. OMG I LOVED this post!!! You are hilarious! I laughed so hard reading this post because I could relate to every single one! My favourites are 7, 8 and 10. Sometimes I want characters to be more realistic and relevant to me as a reader.

    Fabulous post, I thoroughly enjoyed myself reading this.

    x

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  22. Omg! Finally someone points out the smell thing! I know in books it is good to have the senses involved, but seriously…I have never smelled anyone that smelled like something I could name. And I don’t go around sniffing men anyway! I just think, hmm, he smells good, or oh, he smells rank. I don’t make sandalwood comparisons…what the hell does sandlewood smell like, anyway???
    And the cover changes…don’t get me started. They are redoing the covers for the Program series. Again. Ugh. Like, pick one and stick with it! And what’s with TWATD having that new paperback cover for the first book, but the second book looks the same? Why have diff covers on paperbacks? Why??
    And the period thing: I have thought this a million times! They always make up an excuse to avoid someone by saying, “oh, I have cramps,” but have you ever heard of a girl actually COMPLAINING about her real life cramps? Nope! Because book heroines to feel any pain. They don’t bleed like the rest of us and feel tired and bloaty and crampy.
    Agree with all your points, but esp those!😊👏👏😉

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    1. Glad you could relate!
      The scent thing just confuses me all the time 😆
      And the cover changes just annoy me because they’re so obviously a money-grabbing attempt. Like there’s no other need for them.
      And it’s just weird how periods are completely forgotten from every story ever even though they’re quite a big part of a woman’s life *shrugs*

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      1. I HATE the cover changes. Like Rebel of the Sands? Why not match them? Why make diff covers for diff countries? Argh!
        And I can relate with the period thing bc when I have it, I’m crippled with pain! ::shakes fist::

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