Book Deja Vu: Gaunt

Hi everyone! Today’s discussion post is partially inspired by the Instagram hashtag #CommonYALine, started by Brianna from Brianna’s Bookish Confessions. With that hashtag, Brianna and others have been pointing out the all-too-common “I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding” line in YA books. But this post is mostly inspired by the fact that I just kept seeing this one word in tons of the books I was reading.

The word: “Gaunt”. The first time I remember seeing “gaunt” was in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with the characters with Gaunt as their last name. But as I reread Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone recently, I also caught sight of the word “gaunt”.

Some other books that contain the word “gaunt”: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen, and The Jewel by Amy Ewing. Some of these books contain the word more than once. And these are only some of the books I’ve read that contain “gaunt” because I got tired of going through my notes while preparing to write this post. And I know that there are also some books I’ve read where I didn’t even make a note of the word being used.

Now, this isn’t to say that “gaunt” is a poor word choice or anything. Gaunt is a good word, I think. And it kind of makes me happy in a way because I associate it with Harry Potter. But I do feel like it is almost a requirement for authors to use this word these days, especially for fantasy books. But maybe they’re just paying a little homage to J.K. Rowling? Maybe that’s how I should choose to look at it.

How about you guys? Do you notice any words or phrases that seem to be used over and over in the books you’re reading? Let me know!