As you guys know if you have followed me for the past few months, one of my most high anticipated reads of 2017 is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Ever since I heard that Walker Books were going to publish this, I have been excited to read it. I've been HUGELY open about how desperate I have been to read this. Hell, I even talked about this being one of my most anticipated reads for 20167 on the WHSmiths' Blog! So, imagine my delight (and high pitched squee-ing [it's a Hufflepuff term, don't you know!]) when I got a proof of this through the door just before Christmas 2016!
It's not April, just before Easter, the book is out on general sale and I STILL HAVEN'T READ MY PROOF COPY! I HAD THIS BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND I STILL HAVEN'T READ IT!
"Why?" I hear you ask. "You've been so excited to read this. Why haven't you?"
Because of one main reason. The Hype Monster that lives inside my head (There is the Other Hype Monster - The the word of mouth one. But let's not take about them today). And, for the sake of this blogpost (and to make myself seem quirky), we're going to call Colin (it was going to be called Steve, but I have a Dementor Funko Pop which I call Steve so that would be weird).
As you know, I have been excited to read The Hate U Give since I first heard of it. That's been over a year or so ago. I have had a over a year for Colin to work on overtime to hype it up in my head. So now, I have the book. But I now have this huge, UNNATURALLY BIG expectation for this book to be beyond brilliant. And I am terrified that, because of Colin, this won't happen.
And I do this ALL THE TIME! That's why I haven't read Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman yet (even though had it on my kindle for nearly 4 years now!). That's why I haven't read The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon yet. That's why I haven't gone anyway near a good chuck of my To Be Read shelves in physical and eBook form. Colin has, without realising it, ruined my enjoyment of these stories.
And it's not books he's done this with. TV shows, movies, music, theatre, places, people. And we all have a Colin in our heads. We all hype something up to such a point, we damage the thing in question. A good example is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Now, I loved seeing it in the West End, but reading it... oh man, reading it was just... LET'S NOT GO THERE!!!
But now, I have a problem. How do I not let Colin go out of control and hype something so much that am too fearful to go near? And the answer to that is... I have no idea. I will always hype things up. Not on purpose, but I will. I can't start that.
So, how can I get over "The Hype Fear"? Again, no idea. I can either just dive right in into whatever I have hyped up. Or I can let some time pass before I go in. The latter is what I normally do. Sometimes, distance does the world of good. And other times, dive right in and to heck with the consequence is just as good (hence why some of the books in question are opinions on my Twitter polls for the next few weeks - if you vote for me to read it, I can't exactly go "I can't. Colin" now, can I?)
I know this isn't a normal blog post of mine, but I wanted to type this up so, if you have the Hype Monster in your head, working overtime over something (and the people around you are making Colin work overtime - that does happen and sometimes, this is a good thing. Other times, not so much [Throne of Glass is a good example for me]), YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Maybe we should band together, form a group where we can go "Oh no! Colin's done that to you too!" and then, find ways to overcome it together...
Ok, I have nowhere else to go with this post. Don't let the hype get you down. And don't let the Colin in your head get you down and ruin your enjoyment.
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