I generally avoid reading spoilers on books that I have yet to read. I never read reviews of a book that I’m planning on reading. I just don’t like spoilers. I don’t like knowing what’s going to happen b/c it takes the fun out of it. If I knew what was going to happen, then I’d be expecting it.
Still, there are times when I need want to know. Last week I was reading Second Chance Pass by Robyn Carr and was getting really frustrated. I just didn’t like the heroine. So I kept emailing Holly asking her if it was going to get better. I think I was just expecting something as good as the first three Virgin River books and I just had to know, right then, if it got better. So she emailed me asking what page I was on. I responded that I was only to page 88 (or so). Then she emailed me back and said: “You know you don’t want to know.”.
She’s probably right. (Holly: Of course I’m right. I’m always right, duh!) Spoilers are riddled with personal opinion. That’s why I don’t like reading them. I don’t usually feel the same way about a book as someone else and we all know that perception is every thing. That’s why I don’t like spoilers. I want to my opinion to be based on what I’ve read, not what I think is going to happen.
I do read spoilers for TV shows though. So I am a spoiler whore. (Holly: I’m just a spoiler whore, period. I don’t mind spoilers for t.v., movies or books. If I ask, I want you to tell me. Unlike Casee, who might ask but doesn’t really want to know.)
What about you? Do you read spoilers? Is there a specific spoiler you wish you never would have read?
I’m the opposite. I *love* spoilers. I crave them.
Yes, sometimes I read the spoilers and then have no desire to read the book (or watch the show/movie), but that usually means I didn’t want to read/watch it that badly anyway.
The only series for which I’m actively avoiding spoilers is the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning.
Mostly, no, I don’t like spoilers. I won’t read reviews for a book I want to read, even if that review has no spoilers whatsoever. I really don’t want to know, so I won’t take the chance of possibly finding out.
However if it’s a t.v. show or a book/series I know I won’t watch/read, then I don’t care. So when I ask for spoilers, then yes, tell me. I’ve read T.V. w/o pity and other sites that give in-depth descriptions if I’m curious about a show I’ve never seen.
I crave spoilers, too. Good spoilers can pull me into something that I initially wasn’t sure about reading or watching. Bad spoilers alert me when it’s time to cut and run (hello, Gilmore Girls.)
Spoiling myself has done me far more good than harm. The ultimate example of this is a mystery that I read more than a decade ago. For some reason, I did not glance at the ending, or maybe I just skimmed it too quickly, and at the end of the book, a child molester went free and the clear implication was that the abuse would simply continue. It still depresses me thinking about it now.
The more I care about something, the more I need to be sure I’m not going to be crushed. Maybe if I were a person who bounced back more easily from disappointment, I could try going spoiler free, but I’m not so I won’t. Ever.
I read spoilers for TV sometimes- like Lost and 24, because I can’t stand suspense. But I don’t like spoilers for books and I don’t post them in my reviews. I like to find out for myself what’s going to happen in a book- it’s what keeps me reading!
T.V – fine.
Books – no way!
I resist spoilers. I am REALLY, REALLY good at avoiding them. I didn’t read The Half-Blood Prince for several months after it came out and I had avoided all spoilers. 🙂
Spoilers?! NO! Not if I can help it. It was so hard not to read any of the spoilers for Brockmann’s DoN, but I did it and was thankful I didn’t allow the spoilers (which always come with undue influence of someones opinion) to ruin the experience.
Laurie – I, too, use TV spoilers to figure out if I’m going to keep watching a series. I’d rather know ahead of time that the show is about to jump the shark so I can avoid the episode or quit the series altogether instead of watching it and ending up mad.
I waver back and forth about spoilers. Sometimes I want them and sometimes I don’t. It’s usually that I do want them instead of the other. In face, I have a horrible habit of skipping ahead in books to read a few paragraphs to find out if I want to keep reading if I get frustrated like you describe.
If there’s any chance I’m going to read the book (or see the movie) then I don’t want to read any spoilers. I didn’t read Breaking Dawn until a couple of weeks after the book came out, and it was like I was in internet/tv lockdown, afraid to read something that would mess it up for me.
If I’m skipping ahead within a book, that’s usually a bad sign. It usually means I’m trying to decide if I’m going to finish reading it.
It depends on the spoilers. If it’s something from a boring moive to a book I can’t get through, I’ll turn to spoilers that some poor soul wrote so others don’t have to suffer as well.
I like spoilers in general. If the book or movie interest me knowing what happens doesn’t stop me from reading. In fact, I look forward to finding out what happened to lead to the result, if that makes sense. Sorry, I’m horrible at explaining myself…
The only series I read spoilers for is the BDB. I only started reading them after the third book.
Other than that, I avoid as often as possible. Unless I just can’t wait.
*standing up*
Hello, my name is azteclady and I’m spoilerphobic.
(and I am happy that way too, thanks 😉 )
Way back when, I used to avoid all reviews, period, simply so I wouldn’t be spoiled. Now that I’ve become more familiar with different reviewers’ styles, I am simply careful whose reviews I read and for what.
After all, that are books I know from the get that I won’t want to read 😀
I never read spoilers for books I want to read. In fact, most of the time I’ll avoid the whole review. Period. Better safe than sorry.
Now if it’s for books I know I’ll never read? I’m a massive spoiler ho. I totally admit I search out spoilers for J.R. Ward’s books because I like to sit back and watch how rabid readers get over them! LOL
Like many I will read spoilers on Books or TV that I don’t watch.
For things I do want to read or watch – I’m so bad about spoilers that I will turn the channel when a commercial comes on for a movie I really want to see.
I know I almost cried when I saw the previews for Matrix 2 – the scene where he was in the air on the staircase took my breath away.
I’m currently on alert for any commercials about the new Star Trek movie – I want to see every bit of it in the theater and not flashed up on the screen.
For books it’s easier to avoid spoilers but I have stumbled onto spoilers going into comments at times. Ugh. If I’m too spoiled I’m not sure what the book has left to offer.
Eg – I have read nothing about Nalini Singh’s next book but I do know it’s not about the Psy/Changling series. I’m very excited but I’ll do everything I can to avoid knowing anything.
I’ll go as far as not reading blurbs for books or movies so I don’t know anything before going in.
CindyS
Some time ago, back when I used to care about Amazon reviews, I was looking for reviews of a book I’d just finished, which was an anthology featuring a short story set in Stephen King’s Dark Tower universe. One reviewer spoiled the end of the Dark Tower books. The end struck me as so silly that I couldn’t imagine wasting six books to come to that conclusion. Every time people tell me I should read those books, I think of that ending, and I just can’t do it.
Most of the time, though, I’m a spoiler whore. Books, TV, movies, I want to know, because sometimes the more interesting question really is, “How’d they get there?”
I don’t mind spoilers at all – but them I’m an end reader so I inundate myself with spoilers all the time 🙂
The only books I seem to be able to avoid checking the end is the In Death books. Don’t know why that is – but I’m glad at least there is one series I don’t ruin.
I hate spoilers. I was mad at myself for trolling on SKs site and seeing all the speculation about Ash’s heroine. I was disappointed they were right about Tori, not because I think she was wrong for him, simply because I wasn’t surprised. I would have much preferred being surprised.
I learned a great lesson from it and have stopped looking at any speculation threads or spoilers.
TV spoilers don’t bother me at all though. I guess because I prefer to read…it’s far more pleasurable for me.
I’m big on peeking at the ending of books. For the most part, that doesn’t make my reading experience less enjoyable. Recently, I’ve tried reading a few books from beginning to end without peeking, and that was good, too. Most times I just can’t wait to find out what happens, though (very impatient, yes I am). Sometimes I also ask people to tell me the ending to movies. My sister still brings up the fact that I ruined the ending to The Sixth Sense for her by revealing that Bruce Willis’s character was really dead.
Diana
I have a love/hate relationship with spoilers. I NEED to be surprised to really enjoy a book, except I’m dreadfully curious so I just can’t help looking for information. If I’m really, really, really looking forward to a book (like, oh, say J.R.Ward’s), I’ll google like a maniac and start digging up every single tidbit I can find…until I stumble upon THE big spoiler I would have preferred to be a surprise, then I start bereating myself. Copy/paste this last sentence for every new BDB release :-DD
Two series I’m desperately trying to avoid spoilers about right now are Twilight – if I were to learn by accident which guy Bella chooses it would ruin the whole series for me and I already have the first two books, so don’t want that… already that I know there was some kind of huffah about book 4 – and Brockmann’s Troubleshooters. I know something dire happened to a character in Into the Fire, but not WHO… I still haven’t read the book because it arrived shortly before I left on a trip last summer, so I’m trying as much as I can to stay clear of reaviews so I won’t learn who it is, but it’s hard because the next installment, DARK OF NIGHT, is already out by now, and I’m dying to read the blurb and reviews and I can’t because I know it’s so closely linked to INTO THE FIRE. Maddening.
I should hurry to read those books before someone spoils them for me (or I do it myself), but I’ll need to re-read the preivous 4 or 5 books in the TS series since i’ve forgotten so much and I just don’t have the time right now.
@ Diana,
My eldest did the exact same thing to me.
Yeah, I still bring it up 😛
If I’m too spoiled I’m not sure what the book has left to offer.
I guess I don’t really understand this. What about books where the plot is common knowledge? Do people really avoid, say, Pride and Prejudice because they already know what’s going to happen?