Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Things On My Reading Wishlist

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.

To take part, just pick your top ten, and add the link here.

1. Alternate History - Alternate History is a great way to tell a "what if" story. 

2. The Girl Chooses Herself - There are dozens of books where a female protagonist "has to choose between two boys". But really a lot of the time I would prefer for her to chose herself over either boy. Sometimes neither is the right guy, and that's okay. It's actually a really good underused message to send to younger girls. A boy doesn't have to define you, you can choose to be alone until you really know who you are as a person. I never see this in books.

3. Books Based on Mythology Other Than Greek - There are so many other mythologies that are just as, if not more, interesting than Greek Mythology. 

4. Less Romance in General - Look, I don't actually care if a book has a romance. I just don't like with it's shoehorned in for no reason. 

5. More Elaborate Worldbuilding - Even if it's an Urban Fantasy book, set in real-world places, there has to be a better explanation to why there is magic in the real world other than "because it is". 

6. More male Protagonists - There I said it. Every really popular book that has come out in the past 5 years has had a Female protag. Aside from the Percy Jackson books, almost every book has had a female protag, and I think there need to be more male characters for guys to relate to so they keep reading. I don't really blame a guy for not wanting to read a YA Fantasy book with a female lead, as 9times out of 10 the romance is at the front of the story and guys don't really want to read romance books.

7. More Self-sustaining Female Characters - A lot of the time when there is a female lead, she starts out as this character that seems to really have her shit together and can take care of herself, but as soon as she meets the prospective love interest, she becomes useless. And that bothers me too. Why does the love interest have to start defining a character? 

8. Maps - Put a dang map in your book. I don't care if the characters hardly travel in the world you created for them, I want to see a map. I am a visual person, and I need to see what's up to get a really good mental image of the world.

9. Less "out there" names - Or at the very least show us how we're supposed to pronounce the name. If an author is going to make up a name for their characters, add a glossary. I'd prefer authors not use names that are so weird I have to guess what their name is. 

10. More Well-rounded Characters - A lot of times, characters come across as just being one thing. A fighter, a rebel, etc. A character that is a fighter, could also have a distaste for extreme violence, a rebel could also struggle with the morality of their decisions. I don't know if there are any current characters like this, but it would be nice to see characters that could also seem like real people.