Okay, so here's the thing. I've been known to
Book Bully. I've even been known to host special events
encouraging book bullying. Because, sometimes, there's a book you just want everyone to know about. In fact, since we're book bloggers, there are probably a whole lot of them. For me, this book bullying thing has been a pretty successful experiment (See Smash's
review of
The Summoning. Now see
Amanda's). But sometimes...
sometimes book pushing backfires. Even when we do it for love.
Maybe it was a recommendation from your best friend. Or your favorite blogger. Maybe it's a review in the--gasp!--newspaper. Maybe it's just that book you picked up that everyone seems to be reading. Whatever the source, you look up and discover that you're the only person in the whole wide world that didn't like it. Fine. I guess it only
feels like you're the only person.
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| I'm all alone! |
There are times when I've felt like I needed a support group for bookish opinions that bucked against prevailing tide. For example, I really didn't care for
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. I liked her Ruby Oliver books (fawesome character name), but while everyone else was hailing Frankie as their new favorite contemporary heroine, I was kind
meh.
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| What is wrong with me?! |
It's not that I minded being the only one who felt this way. I make an effort to develop my own opinions about the books that I read--especially the ones that I review--but there's a peculiar feeling I get when I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't like a certain book. It's kind of a "what's wrong with me?" feeling. I've seen a few comments to this effect around the blogosphere, so I thought it would be worth taking a moment to discuss the subject.
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| I'm a work in progress. How 'bout you? |
While I still get the "why am I the only one?" feeling, I've also developed this philosophy about reading. Books are intensely personal, just like life experiences. How we react to any given situation will depend on the events that have shaped us. So, why should books be any different? Why should we feel that there's anything wrong with us when our reaction to a book differs from anyone else's? I think a lot of us know this intellectually, but we find it hard to feel it's true when we're faced with an overwhelming majority that feels the exact opposite.
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| Say it ain't so! |
Think of it this way. I know it's hard to believe, but there are people in the world who don't like chocolate--dark, milk
or white. These people are a rare breed, but they exist. And every time I've run into one, someone (often me) has said, "What do MEAN you don't like chocolate?!?!?" (There may or may not be fainting involved on my part.) It may be awfully tempting to think of that person as defective, but the truth is, they're not. They've eaten chocolate and their taste buds told them, "Meh." Much in the same way I felt about
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks.
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| Huggle Thyself |
You could make an argument that chocolate (and books, to further the analogy) could be an acquired taste. Like wine. But why bother? If you don't like a book, you don't like it. Maybe you'll change your mind when you try rereading it in a few years (this has happened to me--Georgette Heyer) and maybe you won't. It doesn't matter. You're allowed to feel whatever way you want about whatever book you want. Because the truth is, you really only need to question what's wrong with you if your opinion
never varies from that of anyone else.
Hey, everyone! Did you know this is a discussion post? That means I wanna know what you think! What books have you felt you were the only person not to like? How did you deal with it? Or, maybe you want to demand to know why I don't love Frankie Landau-Banks. Go on, participate!
Special shout-out to Small Review, whose discussion post style I copied.
Love ya, Small!
