Reading in Public No. 7

The Expectations Game: Common expectation hangups for readers

As a public reader and reviewer who loves consuming other public readers’ reviews, I know I’m not alone in letting expectations impact my reading experience. So often we hear about books not living up to the hype, books taking us by surprise, books that are marketed as fill-in-the-blank-genre that are not fill-in-the-blank genre. As an avid reader, it’s nearly impossible to go into a book with zero expectations, and the expectations game can take some of the joy out of the reading experience.

Unmet expectations can also impact how we review books or even talk about them casually with reader friends. Because I review books publicly in order to put the right books into the hands of the right readers, I strongly believe in the importance of (to the best of my ability) understanding and separating my expectations from the book itself. Today I’m breaking down some common expectations traps that I have fallen into as a reader. Next week, I’ll share how and why I do my best to not to let the expectations game cast a shadow on my reading life.

My common expectation hangups

1. Expectations from hype. Sometimes it’s the case that my expectations are just too high. Maybe those sky-high expectations come from back cover descriptions, blurbs from beloved authors, or recommendations from other readers, but, whatever the source, hype can take a major toll on the reading experience. For me, hype can interfere with my reading in two ways. First, a book can suffer in my estimation because I’m expecting it to be a fantastically original or emotionally resonant read that, for whatever reason, doesn’t click for me. Last year, I expected to be blown away by a book that seemed to go from under-the-radar to the top of best books of the year lists almost overnight. I expected this book to devastate me in the best way and to tell a story I hadn’t heard before. My overblown expectations kept me from appreciating the more subdued and simple story I encountered. Second, I admit that I sometimes approach hyped books in a contrarian manner, looking to find faults in books that other readers may have missed (I don’t like this about myself, but it happens). And I’ll admit that seeing so many rave reviews of this 2022 favorite might have made me approach it with a more critical eye than I would have otherwise.

2. Expectations of an author. Recently I’ve been enjoying exploring beloved authors’ backlists and working to become a completist for the authors I admire most. The more I read from a particular author, the more defined my expectations of that author become. I begin to anticipate a specific type of character, a certain flow to the story, a cohesive style to the writing, and common themes across books. I’m currently in the middle of one of my most anticipated releases of 2023 and it’s a very different book than what I’ve come to expect from this author. It’s hard not to feel a tinge of disappointment. I reached for this book expecting a specific experience that I’ve come to associate with a favorite author, and I’m not getting that experience. It took me until about a third of the way into the book for me to relax into what this author was actually doing and now I’m really loving it. And sometimes the opposite happens! Last year I read a book by an author I adore, and while I loved the book, I think it was less memorable to me because it was so reminiscent of her previous work.

3. Genre expectations. This trap is particularly difficult because what is a genre beyond a set of agreed upon expectations? If a book is labeled a mystery, we expect the crime to be solved. If it’s a romance, we expect a happily ever after. If it’s high fantasy, we expect a cohesive magical system. Then there are the murkier descriptors that may not be officially part of a genre’s definition but are common enough to result in certain expectations. We may expect thrillers to be past-paced, for example, or want historical fiction to have a star-crossed love story because those tropes—while not genre defining—are so common. Recently, R.F. Kuang’s Babel required me to adjust my genre expectations to fully appreciate it. Billed as a fantasy novel by many, I expected more robust world-building and explanations of the magic at work. To me, Babel is still very much a fantasy novel, but I had to let go of some of my ideas about what kind of fantasy I thought it would be in order to fully sink into the story.

4. Expectations of “literariness.” Somewhere along the lines, whether from classes, peers, or just my own reading, I picked up ideas about what gives a work literary value. Some of these expectations are so common they become aphorisms (“show don’t tell,” “don’t use a long word when a short one will work”). Other expectations are more personal and idiosyncratic. I, for example, tend to think of good literary writing as utilizing an inventive structure. That’s something I’m beginning to understand more as a matter of taste than as a beacon of literary merit and I’ve recently enjoyed rekindling my love for quieter, more straightforward stories. Of course, ideas about what lends a book literary merit are entirely derived from cultural norms and storytelling styles which brings me to…

5. Cultural expectations. Underlying all of the above and impacting pretty much every aspect of my reading life are my own cultural expectations. I have cultural expectations about writing style, story arc, characterization…everything. A great example that’s come up frequently in discussion over in the FictionMatters Patreon community, is the way Yaa Gyasi’s novel Homegoing makes use of coincidence to propel the plot. Many writing instructors would say that “relying” on coincidence is poor storytelling—but that’s a cultural construct, not a fact! This can be really difficult to shake if we’ve grown up expecting a particular type of story and being told that certain storytelling styles are objectively better than others. But we do have these skills! I notice that I tend to naturally take cultural expectations into consideration when reading classics and older books—we don’t expect older books to cater to our modern views on storytelling. But I catch myself falling into the trap of cultural expectations when reading newer books Authors like Cecile Pin and Matthew Salesses even directly address cultural expectations in their fiction through metafictional asides—explaining what a reader might think is necessary for a good story and then subverting those expectations. My ingrained sense of what a story needs to be successful is hard to shake, but consciously working to understand my cultural expectations has opened entire worlds of stories. I find it exhilarating to remind myself that authors might be coming from different storytelling traditions and trying to meet the book on its own terms.

NOTE: The best book about cultural expectations and writing is Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses. Throughout this series, I’ll share more of what I’ve learned from his incredible book, because it’s shaped much of my thinking about reading. But I highly recommend that every avid reader and book reviewer pick it up and read if for themselves. It’s phenomenal.

Readers, I’d love to know how expectations impact your reading life! Leave a comment with a reading life observation or a reading experience that was affected by unmet expectations. Next week I’ll be back with another Reading in Public all about how I grapple with my expectations and why I think that’s so essential.

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-Sara