>I assure you that the marketing categories are not helpful in my basic quest, which is to determine if the book is good. Nothing short of starting to read the

>I assure you that the marketing categories are not helpful in my basic quest, which is to determine if the book is good. Nothing short of starting to read the book can do that. Interesting. I found that when selecting books, it's helpful for me to see how people have tagged them. That way I avoid some of the cliches I really don't care for and can narrow focus a bit. It's unusual for that to be wrong for me, where I actually like one of the books I had initially excluded based on category. For example, if you really aren't into steampunk noir, I think it's helpful to know that the book you're about to read is a steampunk noir. Same goes for space opera, litrpg, gun porn, hard sci fi, hack and slash, harem stories, overpowered heroes, etc. When you've got the best version of something you generally dislike, you'll see that in reviews.