Gimmicks In Fiction: Our Favorite Gotcha Books!
In our second episode, we talked all about gimmicks in books—when they work and when they don’t!
All forms of art have gimmicks. With books it’s less concrete what is a gimmick and what isn’t, and ultimately is decided upon the reader. But at the end of the day, what we consider successful gimmicks is when the story couldn’t have been told any other way.
Below is a list of books we chatted about in the Gimmicks in Fiction, and a few that didn’t make it in the final edit! All of these are available at our Bookshop link!
The Book Within The Book
Sounds meta, right? Maybe because it is! This one’s for those with kiddos around—something we love about children’s books is their ability to naturally get away with all kinds of gimmicks. Crayons with personalities! Animals that talk! Pumpkins hosting dinner parties! Baby monsters! None of this exists in reality, and children’s books offer us so many opportunities to remember the boundless limits of storytelling. We Are in a Book! by Mo Willems is just one example of the many fun ways children’s books are gimmicks we typically always love.
The Never-ending Sentence
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann is described as written in the stream-of-consciousness style and consists of a single sentence over the course of 1,000 pages. Insert shocked emoji here. It’s the book equivalent of the single-shot movie gimmick. The book is lauded as being creative, imaginative, and challenging. It was Shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, and general opinion ranges from loved it! to wtf! We haven’t read this one yet, and it makes the cut because we want to hear from those who have! Have you read Ducks, Newburyport?
GTG, I’m Reading
Books written as diary entries, or as scripts, or as manuals for surviving the zombie apocalypse. Formats in fiction have always been something authors have fun with when trying to find the best way to tell their story. Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra, a book written a multiple choice test, and Texts from Jane Eyre by Daniel M. Lavery, a book written entirely as text messages, are two gimmicky formats that we’re obsessed with.
The Unlikely Narrator
Ian McEwan wrote a book from the perspective of a baby…in the womb. Dogs have often been the storyteller in many books. Unlikely narrators can sometimes feel like gimmicks, and this one is one of our favorites. The Book Thief is written from the perspective of Death, and Death isn’t what we’ve always assumed of it. One of Jill’s all-time favorite books, so you might want to read this now if you don’t want to end up on her no-no list.
Netflix and Shh, I’m Reading!
We love a book Netflix adaptation, okay? Like everyone else in the world, we watched Bridgerton, fell in love with the Duke and Anthony Bridgerton in equal measure, and ran to the books to begin our winter hibernation the only way we know how. But Bridgerton isn’t the only book-to-Netflix worth your while. We loved Dumplin’ and the next book in the series, Pumpkin’, is available this May!
The Modern Classic
Sometimes, modernizing a classic text gets it wrong. Like, very wrong. For reference, listen to the episode. But sometimes, it gets it so so so right. Pride by Ibi Zoboi is a modernizing of Pride and Prejudice that feels authentic, honest, and has one of the best opening sentence we’ve ever read.
What’s a gimmick in books you love…or hate? Let us know in the comments below, and don’t forget to listen to the episode!