Books in Verse

November 8, 2017     erinthebooknut     Discussion, Feature

 

There is a small group of books in YA that aren’t like the others. Instead of your usual format and writing style, books by authors like Ellen Hopkins and others are written in verse. For some people these books are really interesting in different. But for me? They just don’t work.

Verse books are distracting to me. The entire style takes me out of the story in a way that sort of just ruins the reading experience.

For me books work as a great escape, and the writing completely defines how that experience goes. A well written story does not distract from the plot, it should help it along. Now maybe verse novels do that for some people, but they don’t work like that for me.

Some people have called Ellen’s books incredibly emotional and beautiful but I’ve never found that. Most of that has to do with the verse style of the books. I don’t find that verse adds anything to the story for me, in fact it does the opposite.

So what is the purpose of verse? For some people the style works as a different form of story telling, one that more lyrical. But I just find it kind of gimmicky.

If you’re a fan of verse novels I would love to know how they work for you. Perhaps I’ve just missing something.

Comment below how you feel about verse novels. I’d love to have a conversation.

From my shelf to yours,

Erin

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