I was recently reading The Priory of the Orange Tree and i was talking to one of my friends about. I was saying i thought it was really interesting and I thought that by all the elements included, he would enjoy it. He then said he might check it out since i said that, but when he was looking for the book he first saw it described as 'feminist Lord of the Rings'. We then got sidetracked and had a whole discussion about Tolkien and the society he lived in at the time of writing the books, but that is beside the point.

I got stuck in mind the idea or trend that is in describing some books by using others. I think it might have been a BookTok amplified phenomenon, which I did find interesting and fun at first, but also started to feel a bit irritated by it as time went on, because i found most, if not all, popular books being described as 'the cross between this book and this book with the emotional impact of this third book'.

I felt that having an actual description of the plot or characters might convince me more. Also, sometimes, when i see the books described through some titles, I am actually less likely to pick that book up, because I did not enjoy the one they are referencing, even if perhaps this book has a different writing style or story progression or characters I would enjoy much more.

So i was wondering what others think. Do you enjoy having that, so you can discover books more like your favourites, or do you also find that you are not the biggest fans of it?