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[2ndhandsunshine]

It saddens and disturbs me sometimes to read book reviews online, how quickly dismissive or abhorrent some people are of a novel that broaches a topic that might be unpleasant or a personal taboo without ever considering that novel's merit or message. The same people, perhaps, who complain that a book (its plot, its characters, its themes) take too

Comments

[heyskeleton]

I know this probably isn't really related to your original point, but I find the book reviews (on Goodreads) that irk me the most are the ones where readers complain about too much sex/swearing/drinking, especially in YA. Okay, so it's one thing to say a book was hard for someone to read/unenjoyable because of those things not being to their taste, but it's another to flat out say the book sucks and no one should ever read it because of those things. Sometimes, yes, they're overused and unnecessary (and sometimes for that reason it does make a book 'bad'), but they also reflect reality. Perhaps not everyone's, but that doesn't make it any less true

[narkoleptik]

Haha, your argument can be used to cover so many things

[darkangel_wings]

Ugh, this this this.

I don't understand this idea that "thinking is bad" or that requiring thought is somehow awful or pretentious or worthless. I also hate the idea that being "too stupid" for something is somehow something to be PROUD of. I think it goes along with something of a cultural trend toward anti-intellectualism, though. The idea that "regular people" don't want to think, and want their entertainment, their politics, and everything else handed to them in the simplest form.

I can understand using books as entertainment. I have my guilty pleasure "brain candy" reads. Books that don't offer much in the way of literary merit, but I enjoy anyway. But that doesn't mean the books are somehow above or below criticism. Personally, I think ANY idea is open to analysis. If it's been put out publicly, then people have a right to criticize it, analyze it, debate it, etc