This is both off the cuff, and something I’ve been thinking about for literally years now. I want to be very clear from the get go that this isn’t guilt about writing “bad” reviews… by which I mean negative. I think readers and reviewers should be able to write whatever their thoughts on a book/movie etc that they want, as long as it isn’t malicious. (I mean obviously generally personal attacks are off the table, but if the author is say, a Nazi … fair game.) As you can see there are many reasons I’ve put off writing this post. And I’m trying to not get into too many pitfalls and cans of worms and such. Anyway – if I hated a book, I can rant about it to my heart’s content. As could you. Anyone could and more importantly should be allowed to. If they don’t want to, fine. If they do want to, fine. And fuck the person who tries to police or shame anyone into not writing “negative” reviews. I’m also going to focus on book reviews here. A review should be the reader’s thoughts on the book. What they liked, or didn’t like about it. Some people like posting book summaries as reviews. People have different styles.
Continue reading
On Reviewer Guilt
2 Replies