I was scrolling through r/books today and saw two posts from people who just wanted to express how much they loved a certain book. It was obvious from their posts that they absolutely LOVED this book and wanted to be excited about it and gush about it and hopefully get to talk with others who also loved it.
If you are a reader, you *know* this feeling. At least, I hope you do. That feeling when you finish a book and the realization comes over you that this book is an all-time favorite. And you desperately want to talk about how much you love it with other people, to share in that amazing feeling.
I mean, for us readers, isn’t that one of the greatest feelings?
I open the posts and see that the top **most upvoted comments** are people expressing that they hated the book…. one was rather blunt and rude and the other was polite and vague, but still. They saw someone expressing love for a book and just couldn’t help themselves from commenting that they hated it. Negative comments were upvoted and the comments agreeing with OP were downvoted to the bottom.
Listen, I understand disliking a book. There are a handful of authors I dislike and a handful I really *really* dislike (I hesitate to use the word “hate” because it feels too forceful) and when I see posts about them here – which is quite often – I just keep scrolling. I see it, it registers in my brain that someone enjoyed this author’s work, and I just move on. Sometimes maybe I will feel the urge to make a comment to respond to something specific about their post, and sometimes I do, but if I see a post from someone gushing about how much they adored a book, I don’t want to make a comment shitting all over that book, ESPECIALLY if I know that the book goes against what r/books usually hypes up. I keep the thoughts to myself because that is not the time to express them.
Of course criticism is allowed. I am not at all saying no negative opinions should be expressed here. What I’m trying to say is that if you see someone expressing joy and excitement over a book… *let them.* Let them have that and attract anybody else in the sub who feels the same. If you really hated the book that much then make your own post with all your arguments and points. There’s a time and a place to be contrary, and it’s not every single time something you dislike is mentioned.
by FusRoDaahh