Are Book Excerpts & Trigger Warnings Really Necessary?

DAISY MAE IN HER RED HAT AFTER BECOMING A CROTCHETY COUGAR.

SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX… Now that I got everyone’s attention, let’s talk about the subject of my post today which is are book excerpts and trigger warnings really necessary?

I have always wondered are book excerpts and trigger warnings really necessary when you can look at the book cover. My opinion & conclusion is a resounding YES. You are probably wondering why? first you have to decide how do you decide to buy a book?  Is it by the cover, the excerpt, by reviews or all of the above. Me personally, I am one of those people who look at a book cover then decide and only read the book sometimes. I learned the hard way don’t trust reviews. I will use an example that happened to me this past week and it was: I like to read that’s not a secret so I follow book sites to get a good idea of new books and authors I might want to buy. This past week I noticed some books being advertised and I checked out all the book covers. Surprised the book cover was neutral or just made me eerily turn off my idea to buy these books. The one book cover that caught my attention had a nice setting but what made the cover eerie was a man on the cover with his hands out reaching for the woman but the expression on the woman’s face was a terrified one and one asking the guy why are you doing this to me. Yes, I got all that from a cover then I started reading the book excerpt and it was so bad I cringed through what I did read and what I did read was so bad I didn’t even get halfway through it I had to stop. I found out real quick these books were about birching, spanking and beating their Brides To Be and their Brides to their bare bottom was almost bloody or to it was bloody. I found at least a half a dozen or more books like this and I thought where are the trigger warnings. The book with the book cover of the terrified woman on it, was about beating a woman’s bare bottom until it was almost bloody or until  it was bloody. This was supposed to make the woman submit to the man and if she didn’t listen to the man the first time, each time he beat her got worse. I’m sorry but in my opinion this sounds like abuse. I found so many books like this without looking it just surprised me. A trigger warning should have been placed in the front of the book or right before the book excerpt.  I like to read books in that time period but not about this. Even if there was no Trigger warnings, no book excerpts or even if there was a book excerpt and I ignored it, the book cover alone turned me off so bad I would not buy that book.

What are your thoughts?

Internet Meaning Of Birching: beat (someone) with a bundle of birch twigs as a formal punishment.

My Meaning: Abuse.