This was the best writing craft book I have listened to in a long time. From the first page I was engaged and connecting dots in my own writing and through stories I love. From the examples to how the genres intersect this book was informative and helped to expand how I think about genre.

The narrator was clear and engaging to listen to making it an easy listen though I will probably buy the physical copy also because there were some parts that would have been easier to understand in print. Overall I highly recommend this text to any storyteller however you choose to consume it.

This was a super fascinating book. I neber thought about genres in the contexts laid out in the book but I was blown away with how indepth the book really was. It is a super long audiobook and while I enjoyed the listen, the book really needs to be read with a physical copy too. I needed to make notes and you cant do that with an audiobook so I felt that hinder me just a little.

Really great subject matter but it does make me feel like a book/film can be written based on an almost mathmatical equation and kinda takes the passion away from the idea of writing but its a handy book and if you are looking at getting into writing or you are a nerd like me, grab a copy today.

4 stars

A great addition to writing craft books! After the introductory chapter, the book is structured on genre, starting with horror, adventure, myth, all the way down to fantasy and love story. The required elements of each genre are discussed with examples. What I particularly loved was the discussion of how the genres intertwine in the best stories! It's a great book for annotating, so I will also get a physical copy for that, but the narration is clear and easy to listen to.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the audiobook ARC!

The Anatomy of Genres is an exhaustive look at the idea of different genres in story and film. The author briefly describes the variety of genres that exist, then goes into a deep dive of each genre. From this point on, the book reads more like a textbook or a reference tome than anything you would want to casually sit down and read.

I have two issues with this book. First, and I know this is a never-ending debate that I should probably just avoid, this book tries to turn writing (or filmmaking, for that matter) into a completely formulaic thing that can be done by anyone who has the patience to follow this strict set of rules, and hit all the 'beats' of the genre, as the author calls them. I know there is a lot of 'programatic' writing that happens, but honestly, it's far inferior to writing that feels more 'inspired' or 'free'. Again, I know that even writers who write 'inspired' literature frequently start out with or even rely on structured rules, but then somehow transcend them. That's what makes them brilliant. Anyway, again, should probably just not even weigh in here. My second issue is that the author continually posts things in the book that are clearly opinion, but are asserted as if they were fact or established truths. Never does the author say that he's not giving his own opinions, but in a book that feels like a textbook, or a reference book, it would be easy to confuse opinion with established fact.

All that being said, I do think that many will enjoy this book, and it may help some out in their writing or filmmaking careers. I'm just stating my opinions. 😁

The Anatomy of Genres, by John Truly, is an absolutely brilliant masterclass on storytelling. It's like a love letter to the transcendent power of stories, while also deconstructing them to explain exactly how and why they work. I loved his book, The Anatomy of Story, and could not stop listening to The Anatomy of Genres. The narrator, Nick Mondelli, was great! Hugely helpful book for all writers. Highly recommend!

Thank you Dreamscape Media for providing this book for review via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
This book is incredibly in depth and descriptive. I really did learn and understand a lot more about genres. I did feel that I was missing out by listening to the audiobook. There is so much information, that the audiobook would just pass me by; this probably would have been fixed by being able to skim back and forward to review specific parts.
This definitely leans more toward textbook than informative nonfiction, especially with it being 700 pages. Ultimately I did learn plenty, though the book really was not what I was expecting and not for me.

I'm super sad to rate it so low. :(
This is a very informative book- but I'm very much not its target audience. It reads more like a textbook than a non-fiction book, which is great for its intended purpose. It was esp interesting to read about genres I don't usually read/watch etc., but if it were marketed differently (like a buffet), I could have read (sampled) the parts I wanted to learn more about, rather than sitting through a 700-page tomb.