Oh I agree! I’ve seen a lot of authors who’ve been told they wont be successful as they post about mental health on Twitter?! Which is just ridiculous! I think we should be able to be honest with each other, even if it’s a ‘taboo’ subject like mental health and sexuality! We should be more open to these discussions

I’m glad I could surprise you! I agree on the fun/interesting thing – I also find that I do that a lot and I agree a lot of people aren’t used to the critical thinking aspect! Super happy that you joined in on the discussion with your piece! It was good to hear it from someone who’s used to debating and being critical from school! ❤

regarding Goodreads specifically, I agree – though I think sometimes it can be unclear whether an author is condoning or condemning something, especially for readers who may not be used to thinking critically (because let’s face it, the education system universally kind of sucks in this regard); so if it’s not being done by an obvious villain and/or the takedown is more subtle, they might miss it. though at the same time there’s definitely lots of readers that, like you said, just don’t want to see “this kind of thing” in their books!

for me personally, a lot of English classes would turn into debates between me and the teacher and maybe a few other kids who’d actually read AND understood the book, so I know that I’m pretty used to just saying what I think, and digging in my heels when someone disagrees – until one tutor called me out on being “too blunt” and now I sometimes catch myself hesitating and sugarcoating or deleting what I was about to say. at the same time, it’s so easy to get into fights with people over the Internet (because I did feel a little defensive when someone tried to shoot down my ideas in class, but mostly I enjoyed the debate; but it’s harder to read tone and intention in text), especially when they’re vehemently disagreeing with you and your instinct is to feel personally attacked: you spent time writing up that review, you put yourself out there, and this is what you get back?? not saying it’s right, but I think it’s an easy trap to fall into.

hm. definitely food for thought, and hopefully a wake-up call to some people to think about their own behavior, as it has been for me ❤

Ugh, I know – I try to stop myself from writing such long comments but I just have a lot of feelings. 😆

WOW – this is a post all on it’s own 😉 I agree with your points and thank you so much for taking the time to write them down to take part in this conversation!

I love your point especially about social media – I think some people do fit directly into categories of sub-tweeting or ‘blasting’ people as soon as they disagree, which often causes drama instead of having a healthy discussion about the topic! I’ve read Nora’s post and loved it, and felt it was a great response to Adeyemi’s poor social media decision!

I do agree that criticizing a book just because it includes homophobia, sexism, sexual assault, and/or other heinous acts is ridiculous. It is frustrating when I read a review that says something like “it’s 2018, why do these themes still exist in our books?” (I haven’t yet read a review like that in 2019 – but rest assured I do know what year it is currently 😉). It’s definitely not wrong to avoid these themes if you choose to, but stories with those themes deserve to be told, too.

As far as having quality discussions about things we disagree on – I think the decay of this has a lot to do with the instantaneous nature of social media. Fortunately, for me, it’s gotten easier to weed out those who are in favor of subtweeting or passively aggressively “dealing” with someone who doesn’t think like them, or people who are more interested in using social media to attack or “blast” people when they could just have a discussion, debate, and/or move on (in relation to books and reading). Nora Roberts talks about reckless behaviors on social media in her post, Mob Rule by Social Media, which she wrote in response to the plagiarism accusation from Tomi Adeyemi – I recommend taking a look if you get a chance or haven’t read it already.

Thank you for pressing “publish” on this post! 😊 Like others here, and you of course, these things have certainly been on my mind.

Ahh I’m so glad you advocate negative reviews too! So many people seem to misunderstand that negative reviews are often constructive and are there to inform the reader and hopefully let the authors and publisher learn for future books. They take the word negative and get too worked up about it!