Reacting to Poor Reviews of Books I Love

Hey, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. I have been trying to finish the incomplete posts that are sitting in my drafts folder and this is the one that I was able to write. Today’s post is a bit different than most, but I saw Riddhi @ Whispering Stories do this a while ago and it looked like a lot of fun, so I decided to do my own version. I will be reacting, or responding, to poor reviews of books I love.

Disclaimers:

• I am not trying to spread hate–everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I respect that.
• This is just for fun, I do not intend to hurt anyone’s feelings.
• These quotes are taken from Goodreads users reviews. I have not named anyone in this post.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

“What a feeble attempt at recreating the Harry Potter magic! Aside from being highly unoriginal and unimaginative, the book grates on your nerves due to the frequency of Percy’s lame attempts at sounding witty. Seriously, I’m supposed to laugh at his observations on the ‘Bull Man’ and ‘barnyard animals’?
Not only did the writer not bother racking his brains to come up with a plot or a proper story, choosing instead to recycle key elements of the Harry Potter series, but he also ignored important aspects of a fantasy novel, one of which is the language. To call the narration just bad will be an understatement. Same can be said about the dialogue and the way the plot progresses – it’s one cliched event unfolding after another.”

I’m sorry, what?! I can assure you that Rick Riordan was not trying to recreate Harry Potter. He wrote the series after his son told him that he should write down the stories Riordan told him at bedtime. And not original or imaginative? How can you see it like that? As for the narration and his attempts at sounding witty, Percy is a middle school boy with ADHD, his brain is going to be a bit all over the place. And it is definitely not cliche. There are some common tropes it in, but that doesn’t make the whole book cliche.

Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee

“Then the earthquake hits and…wait…an earthquake happened? Maybe I like my stories way too juicy, I don’t know. But as the earthquake was happening, I didn’t feel anything at all. It was like, the earthquake is happening, still happening, oh no things are falling and breaking…and that’s about it. Tragedy strikes in the form of several characters dying, and literally no one is mourning, no one is distraught about finding crushed bodies of people they spoke to not several hours the night before. Everyone just moves along, like someone sprained an ankle.”

Okay, I can kind of understand where the reader is coming from. But, seriously, cut the characters some slack. When traumatic events happen, like the earthquake, it’s common for people to kind of go numb. Like, the world and everything is moving around them and they’re going through the motions, but their minds are blank. Their eyes are seeing all the damage and destruction but they can’t process what they’re seeing in order to mourn or be distraught. Also, if you stop moving in the middle of an earthquake, you are likely not going to survive. It’s not that the characters are heartless or unemotional (they’re not), they just don’t have the capacity or ability to sit and mourn.

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

“The writing? BAD. You can tell the writer is young and inexperienced and I don’t want to be a jerk but goddamn does this feel like a desperate creative writing project chock full of cliches masquerading as some type of deep/meaningful prose.

The characters? Terrible. They are so poorly written and one dimensional that there are no stakes – I didn’t care if any of them lived or died.”

Um, how can you say that Chloe Gong’s writing is bad? Like, how?! I loved the vivid imagery that she created; the monster and Shanghai came to life through her her writing. The characters are one of the best parts of this book. How can you not care for them? None of them were one dimensional, and while some did have less development than others, I rooted for all of them. And of course there are stakes! There’s a deadly monster on the loose that causes people to rip out their own throats. How much more of stakes do you want?

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

🚨**SPOILER WARNING**🚨

“Palacio does not have a condition similar to August’s and it shows. She let’s August’s disability define his character and the way other characters interact with him, all while spouting that August should be treated like everyone else. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this, but at the fifth grade graduation ceremony August is given an award for showing courage throughout the school year and inspiring his peers, and the message behind that is hogwash. “The existence of someone should not be considered ‘inspirational,’ just because they’re different.”. August was handed an award for his disfigurement because in Palacio’s mind having a disfigurement is a big challenge that “normal” people should be inspired by. This is what I mean when I say the book contradicts itself.”

I have a lot to say about this. I was looking through reviews and this point of view seemed to pop up a lot. But I disagree with it. Auggie didn’t get the award because he had a facial deformity, he got the award because he was brave and faced the challenges that were put in front of him with kindness and courage. In the book, during the award ceremony, Mr. Tushman (the principle) reads from his book and in the words of Henry Ward Beecher, he says, “Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength . . . He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.” Auggie received the award because he showed kindness, friendship, courage, and character, four things that are mentioned earlier in Mr. Tushman’s speech. Auggie showed his peers that you don’t need to be a jerk to get attention. Palacio isn’t trying to say that people with differences should be treated specially; her message is that you should treat people with kindness and accept people for who they are.

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Do you agree or disagree with any of these reviews?