Spare? C'mon...can you spare a square?

>I also liked reading about Elaine's artwork. I'm a very visually-oriented person and I could imagine all of her paintings quite easily and found it fascinating how she used the elements of her past in her artwork.

GREAT point- That's something I didn't mention, but you're so right to state how important and intriguing that was...

TOO TRUE. Maybe it's bad of me, but there was definitely a little relief in feeling that I haven't encountered as many sticky situations in my own life...

Hi! Great question - I typically don’t re-read books but I do post reviews on Goodreads, bookstagram and booktok. Before I get into this further, I want to mention that no book is perfect. Some people may love a book, that you may not. For example, the Colleen Hoover books are loved by so many and hated by so many. Also, indie authors cannot afford to have low ratings. If you have any suggestions for them, please reach out to them personally and let them know your feedback. I will still give them a decent review on Goodreads/Amazon/Booksta,etc as long as the book was not unbearable. I always like to give feedback in a positive way. No reason to bulldoze someone’s dream to be an author. Sorry if I’m coming off strong regarding this topic, but I have many author friends and read their books and read the reviews on their books.

Here are my thoughts on rating a book:

5 stars - I LOVED the reading experience, the plot and the character growth was perfect, writing style was amazing, and may or may not read the book again many years later as there are too many books in this world I still want to read. I also give 5 stars to books that gave me a great overall reading experience. Sometimes I may not love the book but there is nothing wrong with it and also if it is an indie author I give them 5 stars if there is nothing particularly wrong with it. One more thing - if I HATE a bad guy in your book, you are an awesome author!

4 stars - the reading experience was good or I loved it, but there was something missing or there was more potential. It also means I appreciate the author’s work on the book. Or the plot was good but character growth was not or vice versa.

3 stars - it was not anything extraordinary but I did enjoy reading the book, it was entertaining or the characters were fun to read about. It is not a book that I would have picked up if I knew all this beforehand. However some days I find myself wanting to read a simple book, not an extraordinary one so I am on the fence.

2 stars - I did not enjoy the book. Nothing is good about it. I just finished reading it because I don’t like to DNF books and I am working on myself for that. I rarely give 2 stars.

1 star - I am speechless that this book exists. I rarely give just one star to a book. It shouldn’t exist. Only super popular books can afford to get a 1 star but I refrain from giving it to most books that I feel that way about.

All that being said, I respect anyone who has the courage and creativity to write a book so my ratings are always generous. The whole point of me reading a book is to have an enjoyable experience, and if I enjoy a book enough to want to find out what happened in the end or to keep reading till the end that book is good enough for me. I read a lot of indie author books which are basically self published books. I know that it can be annoying for people to see grammar or spelling errors when you’re reading but writing a book is not easy so I respect that. I do not account for them in my ratings. I am more generous towards self publishing authors.

Also, I want to mention that I have seen many books written by famous authors with spelling mistakes or grammar errors or something that would catch my eye. As long as it doesn’t take away from the story, it shouldn’t affect the ratings. I learnt this from an author friend. We are humans. Let’s appreciate the efforts and spread love 💕😊

They don't renew the license. Some will keep one copy. Depends.

I've heard so many complaints about cloudlibrary in my book groups online.

Everybody feels sorry for him because he lost his mother at a young age and didn't get therapy until he was 30-wtf?? There are millions of us in the same position (i lost both parents) who don't have the means to even afford the needed therapy. Like we are supposed to feel sorry for him as he partied his way through his 20s like only rich people can do? Just comes off as whiny and entitled-he needs to live life for a week like real people with real world problems and then maybe he would be more grateful for what he actually has.

You're not the only one!

I like this. I feel like ebooks at the library bring a new fairness to readers. Hope there's fairness to libraries too. I know there's lots of negotiation yet.

Interesting. But a few things not mentioned. Some physical books stay on the shelves for years but likely just one copy after a time. Physical books get damaged so there are likely limited checkouts, especially on very popular books. How long? It depends. The quality of binding which can also mean more expensive I'd guess. It could be one checkout or 20. Most people are likely careful with library books but there are certainly those who are not. Those have to be taken out of circulation. Most very popular books have a shorter life. So there are advantages to ebooks. They never get damaged. And it can be decided they don't need 6 licenses anymore. And the budget as many have said. My library encourages ebooks and Libby. People are reading.

Also don't think publishers hate libraries. I think its difficult to figure out fair use. Its still very new.

Yeah, I don't like when people get judgy about what kind of books people like. Lots of fiction is written for entertainment. I don't like Scorcese movies [they're always depressing]. It doesn't mean they're not good or that I'm dumb. People who read Tom Clancy and John Grisham books just want a fun spy thriller/government intrigue book. People who like graphic novels like the combination of art and story. People who like Colleen Hoover probably would have been the same people reading the novels that Catherine Moreland of Northanger Abbey loved so much in 1812.

I might not like everything, but what do I know, I love a good fairy tale retelling or a Sarah Dessen book as much as the next girl.

Where did Blood Meridian click for you? I'm just over half way through and am really enjoying it. Definitely much easier to get into than Finnegans Wake

I was reading Anne Rice.

Outside websites(discord, etc) are used to coordinate brigading now, since the admin crackdowns.

I have also received sustained harassment over time from comments made on reddit. It's happened twice. I forget what I did to offend the one time, but the other was that I said someone should consider adding a content warning to their post because of something very unpleasant dropped out of nowhere near the end of it. Both times they followed me to other subs and would reply to my posts there, with stuff that was clearly off but not rule breaking. The reason I remember the one so well is that person was replying with the thing I'd said bothered me, no context just the words copy-pasted from their post. The reason I didn't block them was because it's not my first rodeo and I wanted to make sure it wasn't escalating without my knowledge(at the time the block tool only made their posts invisible to me, and allowed them to continue interacting with posts I'd made, so I wouldn't know if for example they doxed me).

I don't tiktok or twitter, but I've never had to deal with things like that on tumblr. 🤷‍♀️

Exactly 100%

No one should ever be forced to read this sort of thing. You need to hear about it, look it to it, possibly train for it, do it, then you have something you can talk about with a small number of similarly minded people who become instant friends.

I can appreciate that there is no winning move in his situation against the British news media. He and Meghan could've gone into the Himalayas to live as goatherds, and the press would still have gone years and years about how terrible, awful people they are. Publishing a book at least pushes out your side of the story, and stops the conversation from getting monopolised.

This would make a great short video!

I didn't put it hatefully. The best description towards my feelings on those people and their opinions is apathy. I also don't care what country or culture they're from, racism from one corner of the globe is as abhorrent as racism from any other. And why defend their hatred by insulting what you misjudged as my hatred? At least racists deserve to he hated

I really like Cat's Eye. I thought it did a great job in showing how the bullying Elaine suffered in childhood continued to affect her negatively for years afterward. Her tendency to sympathize with men, no matter how badly they were behaving toward the women in their lives, for example. Also, her mistrust of any kind of female authority figures. It's unusual to read a book by a female author where male-female relationships are taken much more lightly while female friendships are portrayed as bloodsport. I also thought Atwood did an excellent job showing how little things that might be easily dismissed by some people, like Cordelia's bullying, which really only lasted for a year or so in her childhood, could have such a huge effect on Elaine that she was still wanting to get closure on it so many years later.

I also liked reading about Elaine's artwork. I'm a very visually-oriented person and I could imagine all of her paintings quite easily and found it fascinating how she used the elements of her past in her artwork.

Very interesting question. I always wondered

Thanks! Learn something new every day.

Unddit and reveddit are your friend.

Just replace 'reddit.com' with 'unddit.com' or 'reveddit.com' and leave the rest of the url the same, and the truth will be revealed to you.

This happened to me! I was reading a book by Marguerite Yourcenar, I'm not sure what the title in English is (I'm not a native english speaker), I think it would be something like The Dark Book or The Book in Black. It's about a 15th century alchemist who deals with occultism. There are many witchcraft/occultist religious themes, and it's very creepy. It's not even a horror book tbh, it's historical fiction, but I found the whole thing to be very unsettling. One day, while reading the book, I ended up falling asleep. I had an extremely vivid lucid dream where a witch locked me up in some sort of satanist, creepy dungeon and told me I'd never wake up again. It was so real and scary and when I was finally able to wake up, I tossed The Dark Book in a corner of the room and didn't pick it up again for nearly a year. It took me about a year to gather the courage to finish it. I'm pretty sure this book is cursed.

Not yet, but I don't do much social media.

It is a shame that every disagreement online seems to degenerate into mean-spirited insults. The only thing I can suggest is that when you have a book you didn't like, that you might frame your remarks with something like "I understand why this story is important" or "I think it was very well written" before explaining why it isn't your cup of tea. Sign off with something like "It's wonderful that this book has helped so many, it's just not for me" and leave it at that.

Wish I could see what the reply to my comment says. Got to love cowards who so lack the courage of their own convictions they have to block you before you can even read their response. 🙄