![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I read an article today that made me, well, not really mad, but kind of unhappy. The article began quite well: When a reviewer reviews a book, they need to be honest. It continued in a decent vein (while I disagreed with the statement made, it was valid and backed up): Writers should be more than allowed to respond to reviews about their own books. The conclusion of the piece bothered me: Writers should never ever be personally attacked. In fact, there are some writers that are so immature and nasty to everyone that doesn't think their writing is absolute gold that maybe a (accurate) personal attack is appropriate. But the thing that bothered me most about the conclusion was the comments it spawned.
One commenter said, not necessarily word for word, that it is never okay to attack and author OR her writing. Excuse me? If a book is horribly written , then I see no need to say "Well, I didn't like it, but it wasn't for me." That writer would do well hearing "Well, I did enjoy this piece (because as the conventional reviewing wisdow states, you should always start with a compliment) but these ten (or whatever number) things kept me from enjoying this book. Granted, this method is in no ways an attack. I most definitely would not start a review with "You suck!" even if that was how I felt (I hate to admit it, but there are those few books and authors I am not at all impressed with) and do not recommend anyone doing it.
The thing that bothers me most about this person's comment is that they don't seem to understand that being honest and blunt is not an attack. Because as long as you can back up your statements and you're not diving into personal insults that have no tie to what you read (accurate personal "insults" are a different case) I see no problems with the review.
Now, I have to go back to what the article said about writers should be allowed/welcomed, even to respond to reviews of their books.
Some of the authors I like actually do this, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. If they're saying "Thank you reviewer!" it almost sounds like "Thank you for the ego-stroking!" If they're saying "Well, yeah, if you knew anything about my books you'd know why your review is so wrong" then it makes the author look immature/not that great. I do appreciate author responses where they clear things up for reviewers, because that's kind of like the "If you knew anything about my books..." but instead of telling the reviewer how horrible they are for "misjuging" the writing, they give them useful information for future reference. In fact, one reason why I (used to) avoid my favorite authors' websites was, I didn't want to find out they were jerky when responding to questions/comments/interviewer questions. Turns out, most of the authors I like are reasonable people who handle praise and criticism well, so that was a pleasant discovery.
In short, there was this article and its comments that didn't quite do it for me.
One commenter said, not necessarily word for word, that it is never okay to attack and author OR her writing. Excuse me? If a book is horribly written , then I see no need to say "Well, I didn't like it, but it wasn't for me." That writer would do well hearing "Well, I did enjoy this piece (because as the conventional reviewing wisdow states, you should always start with a compliment) but these ten (or whatever number) things kept me from enjoying this book. Granted, this method is in no ways an attack. I most definitely would not start a review with "You suck!" even if that was how I felt (I hate to admit it, but there are those few books and authors I am not at all impressed with) and do not recommend anyone doing it.
The thing that bothers me most about this person's comment is that they don't seem to understand that being honest and blunt is not an attack. Because as long as you can back up your statements and you're not diving into personal insults that have no tie to what you read (accurate personal "insults" are a different case) I see no problems with the review.
Now, I have to go back to what the article said about writers should be allowed/welcomed, even to respond to reviews of their books.
Some of the authors I like actually do this, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. If they're saying "Thank you reviewer!" it almost sounds like "Thank you for the ego-stroking!" If they're saying "Well, yeah, if you knew anything about my books you'd know why your review is so wrong" then it makes the author look immature/not that great. I do appreciate author responses where they clear things up for reviewers, because that's kind of like the "If you knew anything about my books..." but instead of telling the reviewer how horrible they are for "misjuging" the writing, they give them useful information for future reference. In fact, one reason why I (used to) avoid my favorite authors' websites was, I didn't want to find out they were jerky when responding to questions/comments/interviewer questions. Turns out, most of the authors I like are reasonable people who handle praise and criticism well, so that was a pleasant discovery.
In short, there was this article and its comments that didn't quite do it for me.
