I can be cynical when it comes to popular things. I was the girl when everyone started to like something, I pointedly DIDN’T like it. Harry Potter? I resisted until the movie came out (then fell in love). Lord of The Rings films? Held out until my late 20s. Leggings? Definitely should’ve tried them 10 years sooner. Binging TV shows? I still refuse.
So when I see cliches in the book world, I can’t help it. It makes me not want to pick up the book. But instead of just whining about it, I’m going to flip some titles, just for fun.
Girl-Centric Thrillers
Contemporary thrillers often offend my feminist sensibilities, not because women can’t be victims or killers, but because it’s somehow more marketable to put women in the middle of the crime. (I guess that’s better than the woman always being the victim in earlier eras?) Let’s explore, instead, some titles while swapping gender and conventional roles.
Gone Girl —> Departed Dude
The Girl on The Train —> The Boy on The Bus
The Other Woman —> Just Another Man
The Woman in The Window —> The Guy on The Ground
The Woman in Cabin 10 —> The Man in Aisle 8
The Silent Wife —> The Heard Husband
The Wife Between Us —> The Threesome
My Lovely Wife —> Her Handsome Hunk
An Anonymous Girl —> A Named Boy
How To Be A Good Wife –> How To Be A Bad Dad
Just writing these titles makes me want to explore these would-be novels further. The Man in Aisle 8 is about a man who witnesses an unspeakable crime while going shopping with his two young children screaming in the cart. The Boy on The Bus is just a kid who just rides around all day on public transportation because he doesn’t want to go to school. The Departed Dude isn’t about a missing person, just a guy who skipped bail and is now trying to make a better life in Mexico. The Threesome is when a woman decides she wants to spice up her marriage and they have a love triangle sexual entanglement. Possibly while solving a murder.
It’s not hard to come up with a mainstream title for a thriller these days, so I applaud some of the more inventive ones. But let’s move on to another genre.
Self-Help Gurus
I despise fluffy, cliche self-help advice. As someone who has lived with a mental illness all their life, my self-help-bullshit radar is especially keen. Often, it’s the same advice, inspirational quotes, heartwarming stories, but repackaged with some sort of faux-wisdom. They also tend to have a bootstraps mentality, fetishize productivity, manipulate others, and generally wish things to happen instead of giving real advice. Here are my prospective titles:
How to Win Friends and Influence People —> How To Be A Good Human
Girl, Wash Your Face —> Girl, Don’t Tell Me What To Do
The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck —> The Overt Art of Giving Several F*cks
The Secret —> Well-known, Verified Facts Based in Science
Think Like A Monk —> Think Like A Punk
The Power of Now —> The Power of Not-Right-Now
Women Who Run With The Wolves —> Let’s Be Honest, You’re Not A Wolf
Unf*ck Yourself —> You Might Be A F*ckup, But You’re Not F*cked
Girl, Don’t Tell Me What To Do is a deconstruction of the various faux-spiration of women marketing to women, usually within the confines of patriarchal ideals. The Overt Art is going to be a meditation on being a better person, and why, really, it is important to give several fucks. Let’s Be Honest is going to talk about women and their anatomical differences from wolves. And You Might Be A F*ckup will explore the ways in which fucking up is actually a good thing, and that failure is not the end of a journey.
Finance Bros
Flawed advice with a grifting motive? Check out the finance section of your local bookstore! Many are obsessed with the idea of being a millionaire, using “hacks” (i.e. psychologically compelling advice that has little use in reality), and the idea that the writer has some secret insight into earning lots of money that will make you come out on top. Let’s look at some popular, yet disastrous, titles.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad —> Poor Dad, Poor You
Think and Grow Rich —> Daydreams Will Get You Farther
The Art of the Deal —> The Fart of a Deal
I Will Teach You To Be Rich —> I Am God of the Universe All Fear Me
Total Money Makeover —> Money, But Better
The Millionaire Next Door —> The Asshole Who Definitely Doesn’t Live in Your Neighborhood
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind —> For I Am The Keeper of All Secrets That Will Multiply Your Wealth
Profit First —> American Consumerism and Will Consume Us All
Broke Millennial —> Broke Millennial
Is my cynicism coming through yet? Poor Dad talks about the importance of inherited wealth and the leg-up it gives rich families. Daydreams will talk about growing rich in idealistic terms and why it feels so good to just think we can manifest that shit. The Asshole will talk about where that Millionaire actually lives, how they got their money, which probably includes inherited wealth, white privilege, and taking advantage of others. For I Am The Keeper will talk about how much money the author actually makes grifting off people like you. Broke Millennial is a great title, but should be the antithesis to all these magic-rich books, exploring all the reasons Millennials face financial burdens and ways we can correct that.
To be transparent, I have not read a financial advice book, ever. I have read pieces and listened to podcasts about various books and the grifter masterminds who sell them. Dave Ramsey (Total Money Makeover) and Robert Kiyasaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) are two prominent hustlers who have had little proven business prowess, except for selling lots of fake advice and seminars. (If you want some fun deconstructions on poor advice books, including Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I highly recommend the If Books Could Kill podcast.)
Teen Fantasy
Today’s teen novels can be found by the dark washed covers, possibly with swirlings of some bright, magical color. Teen novels take themselves very seriously and sometimes their titles are ridiculously similar. Take All Our Broken Pieces and Our Broken Pieces. Or Children of Blood and Bone and Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Shadow and Bone (apparently we like lists of dark creepy things). So, I thought it’d be nice to lighten the mood a bit and take out the grim overtones. Remember, it doesn’t have to be deadly to be a good, serious story.
A Court of Thorns and Roses —> A Court of Unicorns and Rainbows
The Cruel Prince —> The Kindly Princess
The Hunger Games —> Plentiful Games
Vampire Academy —> Baby Goat Academy
Beautiful Creatures —> Happy Creatures
Shatter Me —> Hold Me Together
House of Salt and Sorrows —> House of Corriander and Optimism
Shadow and Bone —> Sunlight and Blooming Flowers
A Court will be a Willy-Wonka-esque story where the fantasy court covets one another’s unicorns and spends their time painting rainbows. The Plentiful Games are set in a dystopian future where, once a year, kids get chosen to gather lots of food and supplies in the games to bring back to their impoverished families. Baby Goat Academy is just a bunch of baby goats learning to be the Greatest Of All Time. Hold Me Together has to do with magic and the protagonist’s significant other being the stabilizing, healthy factor in their magical journey. Sunlight and Blooming Flowers is an ultimate magical gardening quest.
It’s hard not to make something up that sounds EXACTLY like it could be a hit teen novel. I find it hard to distinguish titles from one another, but perhaps Gen Z teens can tell the difference well enough. I can’t speak for their tastes, I just know the titles are, to use a phrase, *cringe.*
Did We Just Solve All Bad Book Titles Ever?
No, unfortunately, we have not solved anything here today except perhaps having explored our inner frustrations in an amusing way. There will always be bad title trends, book cover trends, topic trends (are we out of our dystopian era yet??), and others. But, the more important thing is that we keep telling stories that compel us to keep reading (except bad advice books). Even if we find them annoying, these titles obviously speak to many readers and help them identify the trappings of the genre that make them want to read it.
Great Read cuz!! ☺️