![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Book Rant
Mar. 1st, 2015 11:05 pmBusy weekend. On the way home from church, it was snowing...light and fluffy, then sleet, and now, hours later, I fear it is raining...which means a mess tomorrow for my commute. I walk to the subway, about four-five blocks, ride it, two to three blocks to the train, ride it, about two to three blocks to the office. Personally, I think I should get hazard pay for the last two-three blocks - avoiding getting hit by the buses on a good day - is an adventure in of itself.
After writing a variety of Amazon and Good Reads book reviews - which have been read by roughly 74 people on Amazon, and I think five on Good Reads. Making me wonder why I bother. Possibly because I'm not really doing it for people to read them, so much as a means of keeping track of what I've read and liked or didn't like, and why. (Shrugs). Also it's fun to share it with folks. But, let's face it - I'm not that entertaining when it comes to writing book reviews. I'm neither a squee-er (Is this even a word? Well it is now.) or a ranter - at least not when it comes to books. (Although admittedly the only one that I bothered to rant about, Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes, which did offend me enough for me to rant about it, got the most positive responses. Ironic that. Particularly since I sort of regret doing it.) And I'm not tech savvy enough to use GIP or GIF's (I think I'm using the terminology correctly, apparently I'm not even tech savvy enough to figure out the correct lingo much to the considerable chagrin of my techy friends), in order to entertain them. Personally I find videos and pics in lieu of words annoying. It's why I'm not on Tumblr that often.
A friend of mine, MD, doesn't read book reviews. She despises reviews. Stating they are either "rants" (where the reader feels the need to tell you exactly how much they hated this book, and seriously she has better things to focus her time on) or spoilery raves, which tell her far too much about the book. She prefers to make up her own mind. I agree. Except, I enjoy reading reviews - I find them to be fascinating.
I have to date read all the negative and positive reviews of 50 Shades of Gray,
Jo Walton's Among Others, Courtney Milan's Trade Me, Illona Andrews series, JA Corey's series, the Outlander series (accidentally spoiling myself in the process...also I've come to the realization that I am not a fan of book series. Which is odd, since I like serials, usually. Oh well, I don't claim to be consistent in my tastes.) and Jim Butcher and GRR Martins series.)
I read a lot book rants. And I do mean, a lot. More than your average bear. From Smartbitches, who depending on the ranters varies between entertaining to just grating. They can get self-righteous and hypocritical at times. To Good Reads. Good Reads had some decent book rants on Jo Jo Moyes Me Before You and Outlander. I actually read a hate/rant thread on The Fault in Our Stars, of all things. Mostly kids whinging about how kids don't talk and think about that, and flinging dirt about the author (which wasn't verifiable). Then to be even more masochistic - read one about Harry Potter, Catcher in the Rye, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hunger Games. Good Reads has a bit of affinity for hate threads. I don't recommend.
Book rants, much like a lot of book reviews actually, aren't really that informative about the book in question. They do tell you a lot about the people ranting about it. What offends them. What motivates them. Whether they need to seek psychological counseling. Also, demonstrates how counter-productive the rant is - all your doing is building momentum - until you have a group of 50 people who basically want to slaughter each other. Hardly helpful. Then, eventually, you begin to attract folks who feel the need to tell you, ahem, you are wrong, and how can you possibly hate this book. Which just fuels the fire.
The rants tend to be, by and large, with few exceptions, directed at "media" or "marketing darlings" - those novels that the media for whatever reason has decided to market to death. When a book strikes a chord - the marketing people are like vampires with a scent of blood - they go hog-wild. They create movie and television options. The books are on the best-seller lists. They've turned their authors into celebrities and billionaires. There's action figures. Posters. Guidebooks. Companion novels. Books explaining the book. (I kid you not, people actually write novels that help people understand books like 50 Shades of Grey.) There's also parodies. Copy-cats. Etc. It's frightening. Which results in what I like to call Tall Poppy Syndrom" or "The Envy Factor". People feel the need to take these superstars down a peg or two. In the movie industry - the equivalent is Avatar and Titantic, also Star Wars. Although no one really hated Star Wars, guy flicks or guy books don't get the hate that female or chick-lit and Young Adult/Children's novels do. Which I personally think is rather sexist. Granted, I liked Star Wars, and was less than impressed by Avatar (pretty in 3 D though), and Titantic (outside of the disaster scenes and the team attempting to uncover what happened).
Granted there are few books out there that have been over-hyped, which result in book rants due to the fact that various people just find their mere existence blatantly offensive. (They aren't necessarily wrong. The erotica novels are offensive, but that's part of the point. They are meant to be. Sexual fantasy that is taboo or offensive is often a huge turn on. You are supposed to be offended.) And people really wish they weren't that popular. (Mainly because if they remained cult or underground, you could blithely ignore them. Sort of like fanfic. Actually, most of the current string of erotic novels are actually fanfic with the serial numbers ironed off. They are dirty little romance novels, about taboo topics - and fantasies that we aren't supposed to have.) Not realizing that ranting about them ad nauseum on the internet and elsewhere just ads to the curiousity factor and attracts even more readers, they feel the need to voice their annoyance.
Seriously, learn from history people - banning, censoring, or ranting about a book or tv show just makes it more popular. Also you piss off the people who genuinely enjoyed it, for whatever reason, which is also hardly helpful - because hello, they can also rip apart your favorite toy. (It's admittedly tempting. But been there done that...it too is hardly helpful. But tempting. I've done it a few times. People don't argue with a former lawyer, we're taught to see both sides of every argument. I can basically rip anything I want to apart. But it makes me miserable, so I choose not to.) Ranting doesn't make me happy. It makes me miserable. I feel ashamed, dirty, and angry afterwards. Which makes me wonder why other people do it? Maybe the initial adrenaline rush?
The 50 Shades reviews are admittedly rather entertaining. They also make you wonder about people - so it can be an exercise in how badly we judge others.
( Cut for controversial content that may cause high blood pressure )
[I'm disabling comments. Because I don't want to argue with folks about this. I know some of you vehemently disagree with me, (and let's face it, people can't seem to argue on the internet any more without launching a personal assault - and diving for the jugular.) I just wanted to post on it. But the controversial stuff is behind an lj-cut, so you don't have to read it.]
After writing a variety of Amazon and Good Reads book reviews - which have been read by roughly 74 people on Amazon, and I think five on Good Reads. Making me wonder why I bother. Possibly because I'm not really doing it for people to read them, so much as a means of keeping track of what I've read and liked or didn't like, and why. (Shrugs). Also it's fun to share it with folks. But, let's face it - I'm not that entertaining when it comes to writing book reviews. I'm neither a squee-er (Is this even a word? Well it is now.) or a ranter - at least not when it comes to books. (Although admittedly the only one that I bothered to rant about, Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes, which did offend me enough for me to rant about it, got the most positive responses. Ironic that. Particularly since I sort of regret doing it.) And I'm not tech savvy enough to use GIP or GIF's (I think I'm using the terminology correctly, apparently I'm not even tech savvy enough to figure out the correct lingo much to the considerable chagrin of my techy friends), in order to entertain them. Personally I find videos and pics in lieu of words annoying. It's why I'm not on Tumblr that often.
A friend of mine, MD, doesn't read book reviews. She despises reviews. Stating they are either "rants" (where the reader feels the need to tell you exactly how much they hated this book, and seriously she has better things to focus her time on) or spoilery raves, which tell her far too much about the book. She prefers to make up her own mind. I agree. Except, I enjoy reading reviews - I find them to be fascinating.
I have to date read all the negative and positive reviews of 50 Shades of Gray,
Jo Walton's Among Others, Courtney Milan's Trade Me, Illona Andrews series, JA Corey's series, the Outlander series (accidentally spoiling myself in the process...also I've come to the realization that I am not a fan of book series. Which is odd, since I like serials, usually. Oh well, I don't claim to be consistent in my tastes.) and Jim Butcher and GRR Martins series.)
I read a lot book rants. And I do mean, a lot. More than your average bear. From Smartbitches, who depending on the ranters varies between entertaining to just grating. They can get self-righteous and hypocritical at times. To Good Reads. Good Reads had some decent book rants on Jo Jo Moyes Me Before You and Outlander. I actually read a hate/rant thread on The Fault in Our Stars, of all things. Mostly kids whinging about how kids don't talk and think about that, and flinging dirt about the author (which wasn't verifiable). Then to be even more masochistic - read one about Harry Potter, Catcher in the Rye, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hunger Games. Good Reads has a bit of affinity for hate threads. I don't recommend.
Book rants, much like a lot of book reviews actually, aren't really that informative about the book in question. They do tell you a lot about the people ranting about it. What offends them. What motivates them. Whether they need to seek psychological counseling. Also, demonstrates how counter-productive the rant is - all your doing is building momentum - until you have a group of 50 people who basically want to slaughter each other. Hardly helpful. Then, eventually, you begin to attract folks who feel the need to tell you, ahem, you are wrong, and how can you possibly hate this book. Which just fuels the fire.
The rants tend to be, by and large, with few exceptions, directed at "media" or "marketing darlings" - those novels that the media for whatever reason has decided to market to death. When a book strikes a chord - the marketing people are like vampires with a scent of blood - they go hog-wild. They create movie and television options. The books are on the best-seller lists. They've turned their authors into celebrities and billionaires. There's action figures. Posters. Guidebooks. Companion novels. Books explaining the book. (I kid you not, people actually write novels that help people understand books like 50 Shades of Grey.) There's also parodies. Copy-cats. Etc. It's frightening. Which results in what I like to call Tall Poppy Syndrom" or "The Envy Factor". People feel the need to take these superstars down a peg or two. In the movie industry - the equivalent is Avatar and Titantic, also Star Wars. Although no one really hated Star Wars, guy flicks or guy books don't get the hate that female or chick-lit and Young Adult/Children's novels do. Which I personally think is rather sexist. Granted, I liked Star Wars, and was less than impressed by Avatar (pretty in 3 D though), and Titantic (outside of the disaster scenes and the team attempting to uncover what happened).
Granted there are few books out there that have been over-hyped, which result in book rants due to the fact that various people just find their mere existence blatantly offensive. (They aren't necessarily wrong. The erotica novels are offensive, but that's part of the point. They are meant to be. Sexual fantasy that is taboo or offensive is often a huge turn on. You are supposed to be offended.) And people really wish they weren't that popular. (Mainly because if they remained cult or underground, you could blithely ignore them. Sort of like fanfic. Actually, most of the current string of erotic novels are actually fanfic with the serial numbers ironed off. They are dirty little romance novels, about taboo topics - and fantasies that we aren't supposed to have.) Not realizing that ranting about them ad nauseum on the internet and elsewhere just ads to the curiousity factor and attracts even more readers, they feel the need to voice their annoyance.
Seriously, learn from history people - banning, censoring, or ranting about a book or tv show just makes it more popular. Also you piss off the people who genuinely enjoyed it, for whatever reason, which is also hardly helpful - because hello, they can also rip apart your favorite toy. (It's admittedly tempting. But been there done that...it too is hardly helpful. But tempting. I've done it a few times. People don't argue with a former lawyer, we're taught to see both sides of every argument. I can basically rip anything I want to apart. But it makes me miserable, so I choose not to.) Ranting doesn't make me happy. It makes me miserable. I feel ashamed, dirty, and angry afterwards. Which makes me wonder why other people do it? Maybe the initial adrenaline rush?
The 50 Shades reviews are admittedly rather entertaining. They also make you wonder about people - so it can be an exercise in how badly we judge others.
( Cut for controversial content that may cause high blood pressure )
[I'm disabling comments. Because I don't want to argue with folks about this. I know some of you vehemently disagree with me, (and let's face it, people can't seem to argue on the internet any more without launching a personal assault - and diving for the jugular.) I just wanted to post on it. But the controversial stuff is behind an lj-cut, so you don't have to read it.]