Ten Things On My Reading Wishlist

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. This week is all about the things we want to see more of in books. How fun!

1. Horror
This is a weird complaint considering how behind I am on both Stephen King and Joe Hill, but I wish there was as much to choose from as in other genres.

2. Teen books set in rural areas
There just aren't many teen books out there that depict rural life the way I know it from growing up in Maine.

3. Female characters who eat, especially stress eat
It's 2017 and I'm tired of every single female character being unable to eat every time she is the least bit upset. I don't think I've ever been unable to eat in my life. I eat when I feel sick to my stomach for crying out loud.

4. LGBTQ characters in adult books
Again, it's 2017. There are a ton of teen books with queer characters in them, which, hooray! But what about adults? We can't just leave it all to Sarah Waters (although she is amazing.) I was actually surprised when my former coworker who started the Queer Book Group at my library complained about having a hard time finding books to read, but it's true. What the heck?

5. Dialogue attribution
I know it's unfashionable and unliterary but please tell me who the hell is talking. You cannot launch into 20 lines of dialogue and only attribute the first line, because then I need to make up voices for the characters in my head and alternate them so I can keep track of who is saying what and that is just too much work. I don't know who decided it was a bad idea to include a dialogue tag once in a while, but this is a terrible idea and I'm sorry it has caught on.

6. Historical romances set in Russia
I love Regency England as much as the next person, but I also think that pre-Revolution Russia would be a fantastic setting and also these books don't all need to be about the Romanovs and their friends, please and thank you.

7. Historical romances set in the US
Ok, I read one by Lorraine Heath which I really liked and have been meaning to read the rest of the trilogy, and then I discovered Beverly Jenkins, and now Alyssa Cole wrote that great Civil War interracial romance, so there's not nothing. But there could be more! What about colonial New England or Gilded Age New York or a little romance between two pioneers during the westward expansion or involving a bootlegger during Prohibition? There's lots of fodder out there, people!

8. Chick lit
This whole genre seems to have died out and it makes me sad. Please come back. You were so much fun.

9. Strong female friendships
It doesn't have to be the center of the novel, but I'd love if a romance or historical or dystopia or whatever features a strong female friendship in its story. So often the heroine is a loner or has a group of casual acquaintances but I really love a great best friend in my fiction.

10. Short novels
I don't mean novellas, I just mean novels that are under 300 pages. There are many novels that could easily be under 300 pages, but they aren't. I have a bit of a commitment problem.

Oh, I thought of an 11th!

11. Historical romance couples who are equally matched in sexual experience
Almost always, the heroine is totally virginal and ridiculously naive, and the hero has a lot of experience but is totally swept away by the heroine's magical vagina when they finally do it. I mean, seriously. Can we have a lady who has had a sexual thought in her head? This is one of the (many) reasons why I so enjoyed Never Judge a Lady By Her Cover by Sarah MacLean. This heroine has a past and she is a grown-up in every way.

What would you like to see more of in books? I bet there are things I'd love that I'm forgetting!