Hi guys! Happy New Year! Hope 2019 started with a bang, that you enjoyed your time off, if you had any, and spent memorable moments with your loved ones. I’m counting down the months until spring, going back to work was hard but yeah…not much of a choice right?

Lately I’ve been thinking…does the length of a book matter? Does it influence my buying decision? Do I prefer shorter or longer books? Hell…how long should a book be?! Have you ever thought about that? Well…keep on reading if you’re interested to know my point of view on that topic!

Short books vs. long books: an endless battle

Both have pros and cons, like everything in life I guess.

❌ Long books can be scary! They are huge and they require commitment. You can get impatient to get to the crucial parts of the story.

✅ But long books can also be awesome! The story is often complex, full of twists and turns. The characters are well developed and you can see them evolve with time.

⚔️

❌ Little books may not be deep enough, the story can feel rushed and you won’t have enough time to get attached to the characters.

✅ But beware of those clichés!  It’s not always the case. Sometimes, it’s just the right amount of pages especially for a contemporary story : it doesn’t need as much world-building as a dystopia or a fantasy.

YES: the size of a book matters… in some cases.

🌴 When I’m going on holidays, I will pay attention to the size of the books I take with me.

When I’m traveling, far away or not, I may be looking for a long book so that it will last during all of my vacation time. But if my suitcase is full and I have SO many activities planned, maybe I’ll choose a short book, easy to transport. Yes I know…with e-readers, the size or weight is not really a problem anymore. But damn it, I love my physical copies…

🔮 What if I’m a mood reader?

Maybe I’m just not in the mood to read a long book. I’m scared to commit. What if I don’t like it? I won’t enjoy getting back to the book because of all thoses pages staring straight at me, feeling like the story is taking ages to unfold. Maybe I’m in the mood to read a short story. Maybe I want to read something light, something cute. Or the other way around, maybe I’ll want to immerse myself into a complex story with plots and twists, a story I don’t ever want to see ending.

👉  I’m not going to lie: I pay attention to the size and weight of my books, I look at the page count before even picking it up. That doesn’t mean I am scared of bigger books or that I avoid them like the plague.

The length of a book doesn’t matter… what matters is what’s inside.

Despite all those factors, I guess a book’s page count doesn’t matter so much to me, as long as I find the story captivating within the first chapter. The story shouldn’t take too much time or not be developped enough, I think that what is important in the end. Evaluating a book by its size seems similar to judging a book by its cover! Whether a book is short or long is incidental and not relevant to its content. In the end, we are all looking for characters that feel real, storylines that captivate and worlds we don’t want to end.

Yet sometimes, I start to wonder… ❓What is the right amount of pages for a book? Is there a right page count? I don’t know about you but I feel like YA books are getting longer. Do publishers or authors think longer means better? Does it mean that they can sell it at a higher price? What is up with that?

📚 3 big books you shouldn’t be scared to commit to

… because they are action-packed and totally awesome!

Do you prefer short stories or long ones? Tell me why! 

Does the length of a book influence you when you’re buying a book? In your opinion, what is the perfect page count for a story? 

Let’s chat in comments 💬