What Hooks You Into a Book?

[SugarCube]

Hey everyone! Quick question for the curious minds out there—what makes you pick up a book? Is it the genre? The first sentence? The cover art? I'm genuinely curious what catches your eye and keeps you turning the page.

Let me know what pulls you in! ^^

— Suso

[wolflu66]

A good-looking cover is very important to me! As well as art styles that I like.

When it comes to comics, I value the visuals more than the plot, though of course I'm not saying that the plot isn't important XD

By the way, if a book has a well-designed cover with gold foil stamping, it greatly increases my chances of choosing to read it. Also, I have absolutely no resistance to Art Nouveau, Mucha, and Klimt styles.

[Lensing]

I like simple covers, every book can be designed like a 1950s
Jim Flora jazz cover and that would always work for me.

No cover artwork at all and just the title is way better than
ugly cover artwork / artwork which doesn´t fit. Like those
vlassic books I had to read for school. I didn´t care that
they were just blue and the writer´s picture on it.

It´s the genre, topic of the book which makes me interested.
Music, life, short stories, novel, autobiographies, erotic, humour

The writing style pulls me in. I like no bullshit, straight to the point
/ in your face kind of stuff which feels real and like a rollercoaster.
Like a 2 minutes 30 seconds rock´n´roll song in book form

[CarltonIsaac]

The size and thickness of the book, and the number of pages it has. Nothing less than a 1000 pages of text works for me.

[Leyelle]

Often it's a level of mystery. But also a lot of funny jokes will hook me.

[Crusoe]

Art nouveau, Mucha and Klimt type of covers would be absolutely peak! 🤌 haven't seen too much of those unfortunately.

But generally, I agree. The cover draws my attention, then I'll read the blurb and then I'll check out the writing style. Unfortunately I am very week for nice looking special editions.

[yaziroburrows]

For me, I always give it the first 5 chapters. If I'm not interested enough by then to want to know what happens, I stop reading. For comics, I give it the first 3.

[mrbrown2350]

What draws me into a book first of all is its brief description, sometimes a few sentences are enough to show a lot of interest. And of course, a nice cover that conveys the atmosphere of the story itself. And when a playlist is also added to the book - it's generally top notch. And the text should also touch you in the first two pages, introduce you to the action, briefly and clearly introduce the characters (you can understand this in a few minutes in a bookstore after reading the introduction and not buy uninteresting works), and not an endless description of the forest or how brightly the lantern shone near the lonely bus stop... So for me, these points play a key role in selecting books.

[kyupol]

I usually read the first few pages. If it bores me, I'll put it down

[RED-VELVET-CUPCAKE]

I'm willing to give anything a try! I'll read the first few chapters and if it still doesn't interest me, I'll leave it alone.

What I like is when I start reading some stories and I immediately fall in love with the characters! Maybe they're funny, or relatable, or totally unhinged. Do I enjoy their relationship with other characters? If they have a cool design too.

[MelancholicOtaku]

A good cover will have me interested in trying the book,good characters will have me hooked

[remiquise]

I'm so bad about actually reading things.
It has to align with whatever my special interest is.

I want to name some ocs (conjoined twins) after Jekyll and Hyde? Better actually read the novella.
See a novel in the spicy romance section about a priest? I'm probably gonna pick it up becauseI am weird about priests.(Didn't like the writing style and returned to 1800/early 1900's literature)
Actually I like Gothic horror, time to pick of the classics and little else..! (and ruin basically everything Frankenstein because folks CANNOT be faithful to the original book! grr....)

Or if I'm told I'm not allowed something.
Oh? Lolita and 120 Days of Sodom are on banned book lists? Well they're mine now-- let me see what ya'll tried to hide from me... (120 Days of Sodom ain't worth it, man.)

Then, since I need to be able to predict everything I just reread the same things. It's so hard for me to be drawn in by webnovels and I feel real awful about it.

[wolflu66]

Although this is not a comic or novel, have you heard of Yoann Lossel?
If you haven't heard of him, I recommend him to you

Yoann Lossel