Am I Weird for disliking first person books?

[Asawi]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

So it's not a mattter of one style being better than another, but whether it is the most appropriate one for the story being told.

True! And I guess that kind of stories I want to read a first person view from just one person isn't enough. I want to know what goes on inside more than one person's head. Having said that, it's absolutely not a something in itself that would make me put down a book!

[darearkin]

Originally Posted by applesauce

I actually prefer any romance from the male point of view

Wait, since when do they write -that?- I'll admit it's not common that I seek out romance, I usually prefer it as a side-plot- but even then, I've found maybe one or two books, ever, with romance in them where the main char was male.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

It depends on the book. I liked the first person perspective for the Dresden Series for a while but now I am bored with it. Mainly, I want to get a better feel for what is happening with the other characters and how they are responding and the first person perspective does not really allow me to do that.

Some books do a first person point of view, and then break away for a third person perspective. The first time I encountered this (I think it was a James Patterson) I was quite disconcerted by the technique, but nowadays find it quite natural, and it helps ameliorate the problem you describe. Jonathan Kellerman also uses it to good effect in his latter Alex Delaware novels.

[ProfCrash]

Jim Butcher will not move away from the first person perspective for this series. It is how he writes.

To be frank, the series as a whole is getting boring. Dresden encounters a problem, he gets some help, he is opposed by others, he learns new stuff, he becomes strong, he takes out the bad thing. Next book, same thing except a different enemy and things get more desperate. It has become far to formulaic and the first person perspective is only one of the problems, for me, with the series. Personally, I wish that Butcher would wrap the series up and start something new.

Codex Alera was very good and did not use the first person perspective. You got to know all of the characters better and he finished the series in 6 books.

[Santos]

I guess it depends on your flavor lol. I enjoy reading very much. 1st person doesn't bother me too much, but 3rd person will always be king. I wanna more 2nd person writing though.. just for fun

[AndrewH]

It depends on the book, but I prefer third person.

What really drives me up the wall, however, is present tense. I understand authors think it gives the story a feeling of immediacy, that the reader will feel the story is happening right now, but it's such an uncommon method of storytelling in English (I've been told it's the norm in other languages) that I find it incredibly distracting.

Combine first person with present tense and you have a book that is completely unreadable for me; e.g. The Hunger Games.

edit: No offense intended to those who liked The Hunger Games.

[ProfCrash]

I loved the Hunger Games...

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

What really drives me up the wall, however, is present tense. I understand authors think it gives the story a feeling of immediacy, that the reader will feel the story is happening right now, but it's such an uncommon method of storytelling in English (I've been told it's the norm in other languages) that I find it incredibly distracting.

I tend to agree about present tense. Recently I read some thrillers by Wendy Corsi Staub, who used present tense. Initially it was off-putting and a distraction. After a while I got used to it, but I still didn't quite see the point.

I don't care about first person or third person. I do care that authors pay attention to POV in third person, though (assuming there's not an omniscient narrator). At least in first person, POV is consistent!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by applesauce

I like first person, a major reason I hate YA stuff being a forty something woman. Just creepy. I do tho have to say The book I am reading at the moment is nuts it has changed first person character more than a dozen times and just leaves you hanging. It is like it was written by a dozen different people. It is a dime store read, But still it is very odd considering there is I think 80 books in the deathland series. It is so disjointed.

first person rocks total immersion glug glug glug

applesauce

James Axler is a house name used by the publishing company Gold Eagle Books, the men's action adventure series published by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.

[BeccaPrice]

I got bored with the Dresden books around book 7.

Normally, I hate first person (and first person present tense even more so) with a white-hot fiery passion. I just can't get into the books, because "I" *didn't* do whatever...

Oddly, I can listen to books in first person better than I can read them, because it's like being told something by someone I'm listening to - guess I process reading and listening differently.

The only real exception to disliking first person are the John Ceepak books, by Chris Grabenstein, read by Jeff Woodman. Those are delightful.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

I never pay any attention to which person novels are written in.

Me similar - I never even thought about it until I saw this post, and I'm not going to start analysing now.
If the book interests me, I'll read it, if it grabs me I'm quite happy to devour it...

Person or no person.

If you asked me what person the last 6 books I read were in, I wouldn't have a clue - until now when I've started thinking....but I've now stopped and don't care. So there.

Far as I'm concerned, you're daft worrying about it

[DrNefario]

I find first-person to be more immediate, and more involving. I seem to be able to get through first-person books faster.

I don't quite understand why people find it hard to identify with a character different to them - it's not you, it's that character telling you their story.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss starts out third-person, goes into first when the main character starts telling his story, and becomes a much better book.

No Highway by Nevil Shute is first-person, but the best, most intense, section, is about other characters, in third-person (and it doesn't really make much sense for the narrator to know so much about them, but never mind).

I don't have a particular preference, though. Whatever serves the story.

I'd guess the Dresden books are in first-person because the that's the hard-boiled detective trope, from Chandler and the rest. I have a couple of colleagues who are big Dresden fans, but I didn't much like the first one and never bothered with any more.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I'm with Apache here. I can understand how some readers might not like it. Different strokes for different folks, eh? It's like 2nd person is almost never used, but one of my favorite stories is in 2nd person - "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang

http://marianaeggers.com/files/tiechang.pdf

and not only that it's in future tense. It's amazing.

I only ever read one 2nd person book (or tried to, anyway), can't remember what it was called now but it was by Ian Banks. It didn't really help that the character was as far removed from me as you could get.

1st person there's a lot of shoddy work out there, both self and corporation published, but it can work well. It's just hard to write it well, and for some reason new writers almost always seem to automatically go for it.

[orlok]

Talking about changing POV, when I was about 12 years old I wrote a story from a first person perspective about myself and a few kids marooned on an island. In the end we all died, and the final scene was a description from a third person POV of the waves rolling up a desolate beach.

The teacher told me then that I couldn't do that, which has always stuck with me. I'd like to take some of the modern authors who do just that to her now and ask her to explain to them that they're all wrong too...

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

What really drives me up the wall, however, is present tense.

+1

I think first person, present tense sounds like two air-headed teenagers at the mall.

"So, then my I go, 'Do you really think I'm going to let you treat me like that?!' And he goes, 'Babe, what you see is what you get.' And I go,"....

Gak.

I have finished exactly one book written in that tense. Every other one I've picked up in that tense gets put right back down.

To the OP's question, I am fine on first person, past tense. Sometimes I think it's easier to show a flawed character using that tense. It seems somehow deception that the narrator in a third person story doesn't tell me critical things to the story, just to continue some artificial tension. With first person, it can become obvious that the character doesn't see his/her own flaws, or someone else's.