Are Novel Titles Getting Stupider?
a Not-At-All Comprehensive List of Novel Titles From a Library Worker
I’ve been hearing about the “dumbing down of America” since I was a kid. I also remember project Literacy Plus desperately attempting to stem the tide of ignorance and lack of interest when it comes to reading of any kind. There were positive gains made as far as getting kids to read but, because they were kids, what they chose to read was almost always shit, God love ‘em.
That was decades ago and those kids have done growed up since then. I already touched on the loathsome taste in genre fiction going on these days in my two previous posts so I won’t waste anybody’s time rehashing that relatively recent chestnut. Still, there’s nothing wrong with commenting on something stupidity-adjacent, namely the ridiculously dumb titles so many books seem to have these days, especially in the genre fiction world.
Non-fiction titles have always featured insanely long titles describing everything except what the authors ate. An excellent example I recently ran across is, “Roar : match your food and fitness to your unique female physiology for optimum performance, great health, and a strong body for life.”
Well, damn. Nothing left to the imagination there!
Fiction, on the other hand, is the craft of imagination manifested into story form, yes? And while not all titles need be cryptic and mysterious, they also don’t necessarily need to reveal the entire novel in ten words or less.
Or do they? In this (Dis)Information Age of article headlines that are entire paragraphs in length, perhaps that’s where we were always headed. Who the hell knows? What I do know is there is a trend of truly terrible, stupid titles of novels because I see them on a daily basis as a library staff member. After having suffered through this ordeal alone, I decided it might be time to inflict it on somebody else.
And guess what? You’re all somebody else!
Keep in mind, this list is not an indicator of story or writing quality. I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t either; some of these are pure, unadulterated ass-candy, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Please see the list below:
Genre Fiction Titles:
The Southern book club's guide to slaying vampires
A Dragon of Black Glass
The very secret society of irregular witches
On the edge of the dark sea of darkness
The girl of fire and thorns
Wolf With Benefits
The Dragon of Despair
The Book of Ash
Daughter of Independence
Again, I am in no way attacking these titles for their interior content because I’ve not read them and probably won’t. I understand the need to explain the book’s concept in a title, it’s something all writers struggle with from time-to-time. But a bad, generic-sounding title speaks to something lacking in the author’s imagination and that, dear reader, is a pandemic-level issue in the genre fiction world nowadays.
Imma stop right thar before I incur fangirl/boy wrath, at least until my next post on how familiarity and nostalgia have primed our brains to celebrate mediocrity as brilliance.