T5W: Worst Synopses

Getting back into the swing of things with another Top 5 Wednesday, a weekly book meme set up by Gingerreadslainey and hosted by Sam@thoughtsontomes, you can find the Goodreads group here. This week we’re picking the back cover summaries that totally misrepresent a book’s contents.

Personally, I’ve always hated the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’, I mean, I know it’s a metaphor but there are people who spend a lot of time and effort designing them! The whole point of the cover is to allow you to quickly gauge the genre, topic or themes of a book. The synopsis should be an addendum to that, the second step, a brief, spoiler-free explanation of the story found inside.

Unfortunately of course it doesn’t always quite work out like that. That said, I actually had some trouble with this one! So here are my top 5 misleading, overzealous or downright spoilery synopses:

~ spoiler warning ~

1] Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

This was an easy one because, full disclosure; I’m only 109 pages in. Then again, I’m 109 pages in and I’ve only just reached the moment clearly mentioned in the quote on the back cover:

“Crime? What crime? … My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman … and you call that a crime?”

We meet the filthy old money lender woman very early on and while it becomes clear the action our main character, Raskolnikov, is considering I still feel I missed out on some of the impact. As I already knew what would happen I didn’t have the opportunity to be gradually drawn into his moral turmoil as his ‘depraved idea’ becomes more explicit.

2] Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

OK so this is kind of my own fault. I read Throne of Glass, loved it, didn’t check what was next in the series so I just randomly picked up Queen of Shadows (the 4th book) and read:

“She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen.”

Oh has she now?! How nice for her.

Why do publishers write “A Throne of Glass Novel” rather than “Throne of Glass, Book Four” or just slapping a large 4 on the spine?! I read a lot of series and I find it’s often OK if I buy them online or on my kindle as they usually add the number to the title. If I’m just browsing in a shop though I have to be really careful to look inside for the order and not just allow curiosity to get the better of me!

3] The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I suppose this is the opposite of a spoiler synopsis but it still lessened my enjoyment of the novel.

Being gay is not an ‘unspeakable sin’ and perhaps the hints at deviance and debauchery just went over my head, but there was a definite lack of depravity in my humble opinion! Obviously I come at this from a modern perspective, rather more open minded and hopefully less judgemental than the book’s contemporaries.

   “Early readers were shocked by it’s hints at unspeakable sins … “

I suppose I should have figured that would be the case in advance, but nonetheless, I thought the prurient element was rather oversold!

4] The Man in The High Castle by Philip K. Dick

This might be another case where my expectations were as much to blame as the synopsis itself, but I beg to differ with the following:

“Philip K. Dick’s acclaimed cult novel gives us a horrifying glimpse of an alternate world … “

Don’t freak out, obviously the idea that the Nazi’s won WWII and essentially turned the entire African continent into a mass grave is indeed utterly horrifying. It’s just that, well, the characters you actually follow through the book seem to operate in the relatively normal.

I don’t know if I was expecting the extreme dystopias of the recent crop of popular YA or the constant uneasy sense of oppression in Orwell’s 1984, either way I didn’t find it.

 

5] The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

I had trouble coming up with a final title so instead I leave you with my all time favourite (and possibly the original?) accurate but misleading plot description:

“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.”

With full credit to Rick Polito.

Would love to hear if you guys have any others?