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Originally Posted by Catlady
That disclaimer seems kind of nuts. For one thing, in early 2020 covid was barely on the radar.
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It was in May 2020, so maybe I should have said "mid 2020" instead.
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For another, if the book was significantly about the earlier pandemic, surely that would have been obvious from the synopis or blurb (if the flu was mentioned only in passing, why bother?), and could have been easily avoided if one so desired.
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I'd say it's somewhere in between, not so much that it's obvious from the blurb, but more than mentioned in passing.
I can see that someone who picks up a romantic suspense looking for escapism, expecting (and getting) dastardly villains with sneaky plots, foiled by our intrepid heroes, might prefer not to be reminded of the pandemic while reading.
Some readers strongly dislike books where animals suffer, even if it's not a big part of the plot. Others dislike swearing, or explicit sex, or explicit violence, or bad things happening to children. Content warnings help readers pick books that are to their taste.
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I sought out fiction about the 1918 pandemic in the early days of covid. I think it was a bit of a comfort to read about something in the distant past that had been overcome. I did something similar after 9/11; I read political thrillers about terrorism.
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Yes, I'm tending more in that direction, myself.
Personally, I can't stand books where children are threatened. There's a Pullman book which I probably would like, I've enjoyed the others in the series, but the villain is threatening the heroine's small daughter. It's pretty obvious that he'll kidnap the child, and the mother will rescue her, but I couldn't enjoy the gradual increase of threat. When her favourite doll disappeared from her bedroom, showing that he has access to her home, I put the book away for good.