Why I Dislike Novellas

Novellas can be a useful thing in storytelling: you can see a scene from another perspective, you can get a bit more information about a character, maybe an additional story set in the same world but wasn’t important enough to include in the main text. But I really dislike them. Like to the point I barely read them unless I am thoroughly invested in the story or if they are on audible and I can listen to them in one drive to and from work (which is about an hour and a half).

I feel like novellas cheapen the original story. Don’t get me wrong, I understand some things need to be cut because books can’t be 20000 pages long, but for me, if it is important enough to have it’s OWN separate story, it should be included in the original novel somewhere along the line. 

I also don’t like origin stories and it seems as though most novellas like to tell the reader about the past before the main events. I don’t like this. Drop me hints, give me enough to come to some conclusions, but don’t give me everything! This makes it harder for me to connect to the story not easier. 

As well, novellas makes it difficult for non-obsessed fans to understand stories sometimes. What if people don’t follow books obsessively, miss a novella, and then read the next book but are missing some context that was in the novella? How is that fair? I didn’t know about some novellas for series I LOVED until I started using Goodreads extensively. Before then I was still reading 100-200 books a year and I wasn’t “in the know” about novellas. And that is even for books that I was obsessed for the story! I would read book three and feel like I was missing something from book two but really the context was in a novella that I never read.

And finally, they are usually only digitally released (unless they are in a bind up) and some people don’t like to read ebooks. The only good thing about novellas to me is that they are really short and I can finish them quickly to add to my challenge counter.

I have no use for novellas but I know some people love them, so what are your thoughts? Do you like novellas? Should I read more of them?