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IMHO | The Struggles of HONEST book reviewing

So I just came across this article regarding author Kathleen Hale now having a movie deal as the story of her stalking a book reviewer who left a negative review comes to the big screen. Way to reward disturbing behavior, Hollywood! But that's a whole other rant. 

 The true story behind this movie is what got my book reviewer blood boiling. If you haven't come across this story til now, I will link the full article HERE, but here's the gist of it: Kathleen Hale writes a book, publishes it. Reader reads it, decides to post a 1 star review on Goodreads. Hale doesn't take the criticism well, goes to great lengths to hunt down reviewer and leave passive aggressive gifts on their doorstep. Article closes with saying this reviewer is no longer active in the Goodreads community. Hale then releases book of essays inspired by this whole situation, which I guess is what became the inspiration for the movie. 


I don't believe I've read or reviewed any of Kathleen Hale's books in the past, but I'd say this successfully killed any interest I might have had in checking her out in the future. 😒 As it turns out, this isn't even the first incident of her being a straight up bully. Funny thing is, publishers are saying "I know this story looks kinda bad, but read her works before you judge." I'm gonna vote nah on that. This story just has "terrible human being" all over it and I'd rather not participate. Same way I don't support any of Chris Brown's music --- not only does it not do much for me anyway, but as someone who has survived domestic violence, I'll not support anything that dick does for the rest of his life. For anyone that wants to come at me with "it was only that one time"... be on the receiving end of such behavior and get back to me on that. Never. Never is the proper amount of times for that. Same with stalking someone just because they voiced an opposing opinion.

This is one of the frustrating aspects of my job as a book reviewer: 1) While there are some insanely talented writers out there, a lot of modern day bestselling authors are lazy AF in their writing styles / plot ideas 2) In this era of "everyone gets a ribbon for trying", there are a lot of garbage reviewers currently clogging up the field who write at a 5th grade level at best and insist on only posting "happy" 4-5 star reviews for literally every review they submit because they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. (To this I say, be better at your job then --- there are ways to convey holes in writing without sounding like a dick, you just have to know what you're talking about and have the vocabulary to back it up).

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I never, ever guarantee "positive" reviews on anything I'm sent, I only say I will HONESTLY review it. And I put the hours into my reviews. I am constantly studying history, science, classic literature... all of it.. so that I have points to cross reference in reviews, to know how well something in the book I'm reviewing was conveyed (or if it wasn't). I incorporate nods to music, movies, classic art, whatever brings out the inspiration in me. If I HONESTLY love it, I will give you a detailed rundown of why. If I found it problematic in one area or another, same. But the problem in today's culture is that if I say anything less than something along the lines of "Seriously, how are you so awesome?" to every author who wants me to review their work, MY work gets labeled a "negative" review, even if all I'm saying is "This is what was great but over here, this didn't work so well for me...but here's maybe how it could be improved in the next book... ". As a book reviewer, I AM LITERALLY DOING MY JOB.

 It's just an annoying element to what I do. I won't stop reviewing. I won't stop being honest in my reviews. And this shit probably won't stop irritating me. But at least in this moment, I took time out to have a healthy vent.

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