Rate the last book you read

Why "unfortunately?"
Know who else has one star reviews? J.R.R. Tolkien. Robert A. Heinlein. Harper Lee. Or if you want people in your genre, Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparks, Robyn Carr, Carolyn Brown. Jane Austen has one star reviews. She had negative reviews back when she was modern and new and didn't have the legitimacy she enjoys now, and she has negative reviews today, when she's recognized as a literary giant, an inspiration, a force to be reckoned with (and required reading). This was covered in that "Dear Writer" book as well; people are naturally contrary. Get enough people praising a book to the moon, and you'll have others wanting only to be a moderating voice and say, "Hey now, I thought it was strictly okay, but ya'll are acting like it's 'The Notebook' or some such and it's not. So you went overboard with your hyperbolic statements about how beautiful and amazing and life changing this is, so I'll respond in kind, going to the other way."

I had received nothing but positive feedback, from friends & family and comp instructors and everyone. Harshest I got was "it could be better," never "this isn't good." Then I heard, for the first time, "I didn't like it, I don't get it, this was a waste of my time." And it stung so bad, despite all the positive stuff everyone else said and it made me think "OMG, maybe this is what everyone thinks! Maybe everyone has been lying to me." And then, since this was in a college class, he was pressed for details and I realized, he hadn't even read it. He skimmed it, sure, but he didn't "get it" because he didn't make the effort. Since then, I've seen criticism, a little on my work, more on others, that boil down simply to "this isn't my jam." Sometimes it's as narrow as not hitting the tropes they wanted or just not gelling with the prose style. I've had that before. The protagonist in my novel narrates in tangential run-on sentences sometimes. I thought that was just the way people think, I thought I was being natural, turns out I gave her my ADD. Some people resonate with it, some people just find it fun and hilarious, some hate it to death. Oh well. Some people like onions on their hamburgers, there's just no accounting for taste.

One star reviews are legitimizers. Right now, "Zugzwang" has five ratings and three reviews, all five star. As a reader, that tells me five of this guy's friends rated it. So five people like this guy. Who cares? It says nothing about the book. A negative review, as long as it's balanced by a lot of positive ones, verifies that the positive ones are probably rating the actual book, not the person who wrote it. That's just how self published or small distribution novels work.

 

Holderlin - Hyperion: A bit of romanticism/graecomania from Holderlin, but absolutly a beautiful book understimated by the people of his time and understimated from the people of modern time. Poetic and philosophic, i liked the fact that Hyperion in the final start to think with his spirit and stop to listen to others and fight for others (One of his friend convince him to go to fight for Greece freedom and break his relationship and go to war just bring him to go to Russians, that are not interested on Greek liberation but only to dominate, just like turks did before them). I also like that his relationship with Diotima has nothing to do with our modern conception of relationship (Disposable relationships/dopaminic relationship).

 

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton - 4/5

I'd intended to take my time with it but once I got through the first half I couldn't put it down and finished it in one 7 hour session.

It's a multiple POV Victorian fantastique murder mystery. There are questions popping up at almost every page, mysterious characters, objects and events appearing...

It would be an absolute masterpiece if it weren't for the final revelation which I found a little hard to believe.

Still, very recommended. I haven't had this much fun reading in years.

 

I have relatives through marriage that are Japanese Christian. Interesting.

 

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

4/5

This wasn't as deep and philosophical as the previous books I reviewed in this thread. In fact this was something I picked up from my grandma's book shelf out of boredom and read within a couple of hours (streched across a couple of days). It's a short and simple book with a simple (but very engaging) plot about a little girl who gets lost in the woods and has to find her way out on her own. It's a tale of survival with some horror and arguably a little bit of magical realism thrown in to the mix. As I said, it's not that deep, but what it tries to do, it does almost to perfection. I found myself being thrilled and rooting for Trish even to a surprising degree.

I think this is the perfect type of book to read if you just want something relaxing with a thrilling plot. Maybe something to read on summer vacation for instance.

 

I know you've probably had to answer this question quite a few times before, but would you like to tell me what your channel's name is?

 

I can't seem to figure out how to do that. Maybe they've moved the conversation function somewhere super unintuitive and we just can't find it?

 

On the phone version, I can go to my lil’ avatar at the top of the page, the drop-down has “conversations,” inside that is a big ok’ red button saying “Start Conversation.” Hope that helps.

 

I just get a list of past conversations and no red buttons anywhere to be seen. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

I’m about to go Lit nerd on you.

There’s a bit of elitism, I hope unintentionally, showing in your assessment. You’re at pains to show this wasn’t your usual, you read it on a lark, it was a fast read, it’s not that deep, it’s good… for what it is. Entertainment, that’s all it is. But you enjoyed it, and that bears thinking about. Why did it resonate? The protagonist mattered to you. Even though you know it’s fiction, you were drawn into the plot, interested in the well-being of the protagonist and how she’d get through her problem. Why?

Fiction isn’t surface level true. Good fiction sucks you in, though, because it alludes to deeper truth, something even more true than bare facts. Fiction shows us what we value, and let’s us get at truth sideways when the bedrock is too thick and hard to drill into it directly. Just an entertaining story? Hardly. If you really enjoy a fictional narrative, that’s your subconscious mind telling you there’s an idea in there that matters, that needs your attention, that’s going to help you fix a real world problem that’s causing you real world distress, if you are patient enough to figure it out.

Sometimes it’s not complicated. Sometimes fiction is simply wish fulfillment and fantasy, but those narratives don’t stick with us for long because our sub consciousness doesn’t find them worth holding onto. Of course we’re interested in a narrative where we get everything we want without working for it, like a certain mode of addictive “entertainment” we all have in common. But even then it’s worthwhile to contemplate; what need does this fill? Can it be filled in a better way?

Entertainment is entertaining for a reason. We’re seeing patterns, structures, cause and effect, that capture our attention because on some level we know it’s applicable to us. If it’s not applicable we lose interest, we drop it, we don’t waste our time with it. If we feel some obligation to endure it, it’s frustrating and we don’t pay close attention to it. You did like that King novel, so I think you could benefit from thinking about which parts were most interesting, why you resonated with the characters, and how it could help you in your own metaphor.

 

I can see why you'd read that into my review, but that actually doesn't represent at all what I was trying to communicate. I just wanted to hammer in the point that it was a light read, not because of trying to convince anyone of my intellectual superiority, but because I didn't want anyone to go into it expecting something even remotely similar to Dostoyevsky or Plato, because such expectations would ruin an otherwise good book.

Mostly I actually do read very light literature and genres that many snobbier people would look down on and use to discredit me as a reader completely. It's just that lately I've been reading and reviewing stuff that is just very far from that in it's style.

 

The clash of civilizations & the remaking of the world order by Huntington 4/5.
Good book.