Do You Try to Warn Readers Away From Books You Dislike?

 

The next NY Times cultural criticism prompt that I’m writing a response to is “What Work of Art or Culture Would You Warn Others to Avoid?”. I may yet try to write a post that better answers that question, but I first wanted to chat about how hard I find it to come up with an answer. I very rarely think of myself as warning people away from a book, even one that I didn’t like. People’s tastes are so different, I can often easily imagine a reader liking a book for the same reasons I hated it.

The NY Times prompt I mentioned highlights some negative reviews that the authors clearly had fun writing. I might be doing it wrong, because I don’t often have fun writing a negative review! I don’t tend to write funny reviews. I don’t often find a book bad enough that I’d enjoy telling an exaggerated story about how bad it was. I’m also aware that authors might choose to read their reviews. Although I think of readers as my main audience, the visibility of my reviews to authors is part of why I write negative reviews with a more neutral tone.

I confess, there is one book that did come to mind when I read this question. It was a fanfic sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo and I could come up with no redeeming qualities. I threw the book out instead of donating it and subjecting someone else to it. That is how strongly I felt that other people should avoid this book. I thought it was poorly written; had an incoherent plot; and had nothing in common with The Count of Monte Cristo. In retrospect though, I can imaging someone liking it more than I did. It’s not entirely unlike books by Christopher Moore – somewhat vulgar, almost a parody of a classic work. I’ve forgotten the details of how well it was written though, so I’m not sure if my view now or right after reading is more accurate!

Looking back at a more recent read that I gave a 2 star review (The Ways We Hide), I can easily imagine someone liking the book for the same reasons I disliked it. I found the book too long and too melodramatic. But someone else might think “ooh, 500 pages of detailed historical fiction with high tension and lots of melodrama?! Sign me up”. They also might not be as bothered as I am by the fact that characters don’t talk through their problems. They might share my enjoyment of book about women with interesting careers. Both my positives and negatives could get someone to pick this up. This is something I really enjoy about sharing reviews with other readers.

Do you think of your negative reviews as an attempt to warn people away from a bad experience? Have you ever picked up a book because of a negative review?

The post Do You Try to Warn Readers Away From Books You Dislike? appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Go to Source
Author: DoingDewey