When I first started out as a book blogger, I honestly had very little idea that there was a whole community around book reviewing. At the time, I wrote my reviews in a vacuum, assuming people would magically find my brilliance and that I didn't need to be involved or whatever. This was wrong.
I finally found the community when I gave in and joined Twitter about a year and a half after I start my blog. Much as I used to hate Twitter, I can no longer imagine my life without it. On Twitter and Goodreads and book blogs, I have found my kindred spirits, the Dianas to my Anne (though I think we're probably mostly Annes, allow me the metaphor). I've made the internet into a place filled with people who understand me, who care just as much about reading as I do, and who will never judge me for preferring to stay in on a Saturday night rather than going out partying. Though I've not met most of you in real life yet, so many of you have come to be what I consider true friends, with the only barrier being geography, but I'm so stoked to meet bunches of you at BEA this year.
My motivation for writing up this post of love and admiration and group-hugging was actually a negative event, another blogger criticizing others for their view on a particular book, claiming that they willfully misunderstood an author's work for some ends of their own. I don't really want to get into that specifically at all. I just want to explain why doing things like that is silly, why loving and respecting one another is important.
There's No RIGHT Way to Read
Well, okay, if you're reading books printed in English, it's generally right to read the book from front to back, top to bottom, etc. Don't be a smart ass, okay? Believe me, I've already made those comments in my head. When it comes to a blogger book review, the only things that might be incorrect are factual. A misspelled character name or reference to a scene that didn't exist. Any opinion is just that: opinion. If a reader thinks a book is sexist or that a humor novel isn't funny, they're speaking to their own experience. While this is helpful and may save others with similar opinions, it's not meant to be issued from on high or to discount the experience of other readers. Such things are true facts for a particular person's experience, and to be respected as such. Accusations about the author are something else entirely, but rarely do I actually see reviews maligning an author, so let's not talk about that.
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| Exactly. That. |
Quotes Are Out of Context
One criticism I've seen is that negative reviews take quotes out of context to make books look worse than they are, and that you can make any book look bad this way. This is, of course, true. Positive reviews do this too, and there's no outcry over that. Any quote taken from a book is out of context. Either be enraged by all quoting, or accept it all. Personally, I think quotes are great to see, even without context. Like with all those papers we wrote in school, in trying to explain our argument, we will use quotes that support and explain our analysis. That's not unfair; it's how this all works.
Invalidating Someone Else's Reviews Invalidates Your Own
Remember that whole thing about how people in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones? Yeah, that. Hurling abuse at other bloggers for not having the correct opinion or not understanding something leaves you open for similar criticisms. Odds are there have been books you have reviewed that other people saw brilliance in, which they may feel you haven't understood properly or looked at through the correct lens. Think about those books and how you would feel to have someone say you just weren't smart enough to get it or that you are biased against the author/book for no reason. That's probably not what was going on, so respect others enough to make the assumption they were coming from the same honest place.
We Do Not Need to Agree
No one's going to agree with your analysis of books a hundred percent of the time. Even my friends with the closest taste in books only end up rating books similarly 75-80% of the time. I can think of several occasions where I've been the only one I know to either love or hate a book, while everyone else felt the opposite. There's nothing wrong with that. The fact that my friends all didn't like Cayla's Kluver's Legacy trilogy does not mean I'm an idiot for really liking it. We're individuals, not cookie-cutters, so we're going to vary. This is why there can be so many book blogs and reviews for the same book without it feeling like we're reading the same review over and over and over again.
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| Don't be this guy, judging hypocritically. |
One of my best blogger buddies, Renae of
Respiring Thoughts, disagrees with me pretty much all of the time. If I love a book, it's really lucky to get even three stars from her. Books I loathed will charm her in ways I never could have anticipated. Am I thrilled to see a book that gave me all of the marvelous feels enrage her sensibilities? No, I wish she could have loved it too. However, does that mean that I think her opinion is worthless? HELL TO THE NO. Renae's a brilliant woman, and, even though we disagree more often than not, I love reading her reviews, which are always well-reasoned, even if her reasoning is different from mine.
I get that it's sad to see a book that touched your heart, one that was a very personal reading experience for you, ripped apart, but don't hate on the blogger for that. If you can't look past your own love for it and handle seeing the other view point, just move on. Go find a friend who loved it too, and discuss why it was a wonderful book for you too. Turn the experience into something positive for you.
If you can be calm, perhaps carry on a discussion with the blogger - this is actually how Jenni of
Alluring Reads and I became so close, in discussing her passionately
negative review of The DUFF by Kody Keplinger. If you're going to comment, remember to be positive, even in your arguing. Compliment them on astute observations you hadn't noticed yourself, thus showing that you're going into this with an open mind, rather than with a barrage of why their opinion is wrong. Remember, be clear about not begrudging their opinions and that you just would like to learn more about their interpretation, because words on the internet are easily misconstrued, since we lack tone and facial cues. Be very careful if they don't know you well. I've actually seen minds swayed in thoughtful open-minded discussions, which I think we all love. Hurling insults only cements minds in their own viewpoints, and will never work in your favor.
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| Don't berate and insult; discuss. |
So, basically, I implore all of us to love and respect one another. We may not all read the same things and, even if we do, we might have completely opposite opinions about them, but we do all love books more than the average person. Be glad that the other person shares your love of reading, that to them books matter and they'll never ask you why you spend so much time reading with a disdainful expression. There are plenty of people out there who think reading is a stupid way to spend time, so we don't need to add to that. We KNOW how much it matters.
Treat other bloggers respectfully, the way you would like to be treated by them. When you put your review out there in the internet, you likely believe it has meaning, and others feel the same. Remember that there is no one correct summation. Even professional review publications disagree, so it's no surprise that we do, since we come to reading from even more variant backgrounds, I imagine. Love that diversity of opinion. Marvel at the way reading differs from individual to individual, at the way I look for well-developed characters above all and that another might squee over magnificent world building or the construction of truly gorgeous prose. We're passionate lovers of the written word, skilled in seeing through the eyes of others in our fictional journeys, so let's apply this empathy when looking at reviews that disagree with us. Let's make this community just as uplifting as I know it can be!
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| Group hug time! |
MUAH! I love you all. Keep challenging me and being your wonderful, honest selves!
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