It's Monday. You're scrolling through GoodReads, looking for more books to add to your TBR (because you REALLy need to add more, don't you?). You come across a book, a book that you've seen all over twitter and on blogs. Nothing but 5-star reviews, hell yeah!
So you run out to your local bookstore and buy it without question. A few days you're left feeling deflated. That book....sucked.
Does this happen to you? It feels like it's been happening to me a lot lately, so much that I begin to think that I am the problem.
Is it me? Do I rate books too hard? Am I too picky? Why can't I enjoy this novel that has an average rating of 4.5 and all my friends seem to adore it? One book that comes to mind is the book blogging's favorite book of 2016, Truthwitch. I could not make myself give two fucks about that book and I kept crawling GoodReads to see if I saw other reviews that reflected what I felt. My opinion felt wrong because I hated an instant favorite. Surely I was the problem right, I'm just too picky.
After beating myself up for a while (while looking outside a window into the rain while listening to Coldplay, it was all very dramatic), I finally came to a thought that made me feel better about myself.
Books aren't "one size fit all." There are plenty of books that I adored that I have seen received pretty scathing reviews. It goes both ways, just like art, people can interpret it both ways.
In the end, I finally realized I like what I like, and I can't help that. And you know what? That's perfectly okay. I'm going to continue hating some books that receive high praises while loving others that aren't as well received.
Don't just leave me hanging! Have you ever felt like the odd-man-out in the book world? What are some books you hated that your friends adored?
Labels: book discussion, discussion, truthwitch
