Friday, February 2, 2018

Secret Shopper

For my secret shopper assignment, I visited my local library. I recently moved and have not had the opportunity to visit this library often, so I did not think the librarians or staff would recognize me. I work in an elementary school library and I decided to use a question a student had asked me as the question I asked the librarian; "I am looking for a book like Twilight- what can you recommend that is paranormal, romantic, but has no sex scenes?"
The librarians that helped me were very thorough with their online searches and they helped me find two books that seemed to fit my criteria. Overall, I found them to be quite helpful and it was a good experience. I would definitely go there for advising in the future, if needed.

9 comments:

  1. Hi Kelly,
    So glad you had a good experience. After reading through some others, it's funny to see the varying degrees of service we are all getting! It's nice, also, that you had more than one librarian assisting. That hardly ever happens! Out of curiosity, which books did they recommend?
    Hope you are getting settled into your new environment. At least now you know you have a helpful library nearby!

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    1. Hi, we are settling in nicely, thanks! It is great to have a wonderful library nearby. They recommended "Shiver" by Maggie Stiefvater and "Dark Tide" by Jennifer Donnelly. "Shiver" is not exactly sex scene-free, but from what we read, the scene "fades to black" and is not descriptive.

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  2. I loved that you asked for a book similar to Twilight and something pure and clean as most vampire romance novels have that sexual appeal in them. I also wonder what the librarian recommended as I would have a hard time finding something like that without using NoveList! I notice you said librarians, did the one librarian ask for another’s recommendation or help while searching? It is so nice when librarians work together to help a patron find a new book.

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    1. It is definitely difficult to find a vampire novel that is clean! I ended up with "Shiver" by Maggie Stiefvater, and "Dark Tide" by Jennifer Donnelly. The sex scene in "Shiver" fades to black and is non-descriptive, from what we read.

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  3. Hi Kelly! I'm really curious if the books you were recommended really are devoid of sex given the prompt question about "clean" thrillers from last week. It was very hard to find a book that I knew would not have any bad language or sex scenes. I did not feel like I could trust NoveList since it kept showing James Patterson books and the few I read had graphic violence, sex and, I seem to recall, swearing. Have you looked through the books the librarian suggested?

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    1. "Shiver" by Maggie Stiefvater and "Dark Tide" by Jennifer Donnelly. The sex scene in "Shiver" fades to black and is non-descriptive, based on reviews read online. Also, we read it was like the sex scene in "Breaking Dawn," so nothing too risque.

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  4. Hi! It's great that they were able to help you. Did the librarians work together to help you or did you work with one then the other to find a couple books? I'm also curious what they recommended.

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    1. I worked with two people who worked together looking on different sites to help. They recommended "Shiver" by Maggie Stiefvater and "Dark Tide" by Jennifer Donnelly.

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  5. Man you generated a lot of discussion on here! Chelsea is right and most paranormal romances featuring vampires for teens and adults have a lot of sex in them so I'm glad you were able to get help narrowing that down. I also use common sense media at work but mostly for movies. We have a lot of parents that need to know content and their version of inappropriate is a lot different then mine, so I ALWAYS use that website to make sure what I think is "no big deal" isn't actually a "big deal."

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