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Sisal Two-Step posted:Goodreads is really a cesspit. Every review is for a YA for adults fairy fuckfest novel called something like A Frost of Throne and Clouds: Book 2 of the Silver Tromblant Series (the second of Dark Fae trilogy). Or for a crime thriller based in a rich suburban neighbourhood called The Good Sister Wife: Missing Invitation. The Amazon Recommends or Daily Deals are full of books like that, all with covers that look the same, blurbs that read like a plot outline and breathless superlatives like "the most amazing / inventive / touching book you'll read this year!" Although there are two other dominant genres: - the abuse survivor misery memoir (cover is an over exposed and slightly blurry picture of a child) - the adventures of three girls with different colour hair who during WW2 all work as nurses / midwives / on a factory line, called something like "The Bomb Girls", "The Munition Girls Return", "Christmas for the Midwife Girls" etc.
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Jan 14, 2021 23:39
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there wolf posted:Yeah, I bailed when three different YA bookclubs I was in started getting taken over by toxic positivity people who would come in all smiles about how this should be a chill, no-drama zone, an then melt the gently caress down at the slightest disagreement or negativity. The very act of critical analysis got squashed out because it wasn't relentlessly positive, and eventually people weren't comfortable saying they didn't like a book because they be grilled on why and then told they were being negative by defending their opinion.
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Jan 15, 2021 00:26
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I know Goodreads is unreliable because I have a solid 5/5 rating for my self published novella and that sounds fake.
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Jan 15, 2021 02:13
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I think a big part of the trap of goodreads is that it's very easy to get into "well my three thousand followers want to know why you saw fit to give my book a bad review" and similar internet dick measuring contests where at some point it was about dicks but then everyone started arguing about the size of the ruler and whether centimeters is better than inches
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Jan 15, 2021 03:46
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Does the YA scene still have the problem with being a knife fight in a phone booth for attention with wannabe authors all trying to cancel each other to get rid of the competition? If anything, at least video games have established forms and channels for negative criticism.
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Jan 15, 2021 04:36
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The premise of that Docile book came this close to capturing me before nosediving right the gently caress into creepland. A sci-fi story where you basically have to rack up debt to get by, and companies buy/sell it in order to keep you under their thumbs isn't a bad premise. gently caress, anyone with student or medical debt can relate. I may as well be a slave, it's going to follow me forever. Making capitalism's need for slavery overt and evil is dramatic, but the fact that you can put the words "Coca-Cola death squad" in that order and it's not just a mad-lib proves life is already Looney Tunes. The grift with the meds loving you up for life, and all that isn't even super out there, for sci-fi. There could have been a dark, interesting story. But no, dude had to slap his dick on the keyboard, instead, and call it commentary.
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Jan 15, 2021 05:43
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Does the YA scene still have the problem with being a knife fight in a phone booth for attention with wannabe authors all trying to cancel each other to get rid of the competition?
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Jan 15, 2021 05:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Does the YA scene still have the problem with being a knife fight in a phone booth for attention with wannabe authors all trying to cancel each other to get rid of the competition? An article about YA twitter posted:One author and former diversity advocate described why she no longer takes part: “I have never seen social interaction this hosed up,” she wrote in an email. “And I’ve been in prison.”
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Jan 15, 2021 06:58
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Most readers are lazy; we liked certain books, and we want More of the Same. As long as something scratches that itch, and is at least a page-turner, we'll buy. That's how the pulp series, no matter how god-awful, sell. That's how every copy-pasted romance novel sells. Very few people are interested in criticizing their pleasure, and even fewer to the level of actually changing what they read. Are there flaws in Parick Rothfuss' writing? Yes. Did I enjoy his books anyway? Yes. Will I buy the last book? Yes (this question is largely academic). I think literary criticism has had about as much effect on book sales as "this video game sucks" videos have has on game sales.
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Jan 15, 2021 08:15
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Cobalt-60 posted:Most readers are lazy; we liked certain books, and we want More of the Same. As long as something scratches that itch, and is at least a page-turner, we'll buy. That's how the pulp series, no matter how god-awful, sell. That's how every copy-pasted romance novel sells. Very few people are interested in criticizing their pleasure, and even fewer to the level of actually changing what they read. Are there flaws in Parick Rothfuss' writing? Yes. Did I enjoy his books anyway? Yes. Will I buy the last book? Yes (this question is largely academic). Yeah, this is basically where I'm at with using goodreads. I pretty much just dump all books I liked into The Algorithm and let it spit out books that are reasonably similar, then use the tags and summary to guess whether I might like them. Which seems to work reasonably well for me, giving me stuff I enjoyed with better accuracy and less effort than just thumbing through new releases in a bookstore. I've never touched the social media aspect of it ever, and it seems like that was probably a good decision. 
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Jan 15, 2021 09:11
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nonathlon posted:- the adventures of three girls with different colour hair who during WW2 all work as nurses / midwives / on a factory line, called something like "The Bomb Girls", "The Munition Girls Return", "Christmas for the Midwife Girls" etc. I started working as a library assistant late last year and this is the second most popular genre we have. Older women love their Family Saga books; it's just as well that every family saga author ever seems to publish at least a dozen books a year. Most popular genre's crime thrillers with dark moody cityscape covers with a man (usually) in silhouette, probably holding a gun. They are all called Hard Promises or Broken Justice or some bollocks. My favourite though is one called Make Me, which just sounds so absurdly petulant when I'm sure it's meant to come across as tough-guy macho.
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Jan 15, 2021 13:02
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Calexio posted:Most popular genre's crime thrillers with dark moody cityscape covers with a man (usually) in silhouette, probably holding a gun. They are all called Hard Promises or Broken Justice or some bollocks. My favourite though is one called Make Me, which just sounds so absurdly petulant when I'm sure it's meant to come across as tough-guy macho.  All bad book fans should watch A Gun for George.
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Jan 15, 2021 13:20
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Rascar Capac posted:
That reminds of this weird Danish comic series Bill Nash that the artist has been self-publishing for 25 years.  Nash is a rogue cop who doesn't play by the book, it's pure 1970s schlock in the vein of Dirty Harry & Death Wish. The story lines appear completely improvised and are full of cliches. Some would probably call it outsider art. It's hella fun, though. I have 3 albums I found in a used book store & would love to get the whole set (there are like 90 of them; above pic is not mine, but below is). 
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Jan 15, 2021 14:18
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Patrick Spens posted:
Sham bam bamina! posted:Yeah, it owns. Romance twitter and YA twitter are both bonkers.
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Jan 15, 2021 14:26
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Calexio posted:I started working as a library assistant late last year and this is the second most popular genre we have. Older women love their Family Saga books; it's just as well that every family saga author ever seems to publish at least a dozen books a year. I guess it's self-obvious, but most people seem to pick their books by the cover, given the highly cliched nature of most covers: * Family Saga: closeup on girl staring into distance, with house or farm in distant background * Tough manly thriller: as you said, dark colours, silhouette of man holding gun or running through city streets * Tough female detective: as above, but her standing in profile with hip stuck out * Political thriller: picture of Westminster or White House without any figures
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Jan 15, 2021 15:20
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a lovely twitter thread from September, going through self-published Kindle romance classic MY ANTIFA LOVER. Warning: contains no Antifa, very little smut.
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Jan 15, 2021 16:03
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divabot posted:a lovely twitter thread from September, going through self-published Kindle romance classic MY ANTIFA LOVER. Warning: contains no Antifa, very little smut. My favorite part of this is that the 5'4" dark haired junior congresswoman named Alexandria (hmm) lives in Seattle for work because the author doesn't seem aware of the difference between Washington state and Washington DC
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Jan 15, 2021 16:18
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I've definitely picked up lots of Baen books, so their branding works. I saw an advertisement from Regency soliciting new authors, and listing all their imprints by title and which tropes were required. -Country romance: farm/ranch, no sex, marriage -Urban romance: city, young people, sex is fine -Refinding romance: divorced/widowed people, sex can be hinted at I forget what the "woman finds herself pregnant, conveniently gets a man" imprint was called. I suppose it beats Mack Bolan...
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Jan 15, 2021 16:31
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I went looking for that article about YA Twitter drama and found this quote which is particularly enlightening: quote:But in an interesting twist, the teens who make up the community’s core audience are getting fed up with the constant, largely adult-driven dramas that currently dominate YA. Some have taken to discussing books via backchannels or on teen-exclusive hashtags — or defecting to other platforms, like YouTube or Instagram, which aren’t so given over to mob dynamics. But others are pushing back: Sierra Elmore, a college student and book blogger, expressed her frustration in a tweet thread in January, writing, “[Being] in this community feels like being in high school again. So much. No difference of opinion allowed, people reigning, etc… I and other people I know (mostly teens) are terrified about speaking up in this community. You don’t get a chance to be wrong here.” lol Cobalt-60 posted:I've definitely picked up lots of Baen books, so their branding works. Nothing can beat Mack Bolan. Haven't you read his books? He's indestructible.
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Jan 15, 2021 17:09
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^^^ Good quote! I didn't realize it until much later, but one of the signs that the YA groups I was in were starting to turn was that actual teenagers were participating less and less. A little bit of a segue but since we're talking about drama in the literary world, Lindsey Ellis did a video on the omegaverse lawsuit that's a good summation of that entire ridiculous saga.
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Jan 15, 2021 17:32
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there wolf posted:^^^ Don't forget the thrilling sequel where Lindsey Ellis gets sued for that video.
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Jan 15, 2021 17:55
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Sisal Two-Step posted:I went looking for that article about YA Twitter drama and found this quote which is particularly enlightening:
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Jan 15, 2021 19:31
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Nothing can beat Mack Bolan. Haven't you read his books? He's indestructible. [/quote] You misspelled "insufferable." Or incredible, as in "It's incredible how you could write a sequence where your hero infiltrates an enemy stronghold, shoots his way through 37 mooks, and kills their boss to take down a national crime cell, and make it BORING." Sham bam bamina! posted:Ha, I forgot about that. The book was racist because it described people being racist, just like those white supremacist screeds The Color Purple and Beloved. I call it the Huck Finn test; anyone who wants to ban Huckleberry Finn for racism clearly doesn't understand books or racism. If there's any criticism I'd make of political correctness, it's that it reduced good and evil do a matter of "did they use these Naughty Words?" No context, no attempt to understand WHY these words are Naughty. And you wind up with a bunch of white teenagers who were taught every year in school that Racism is Bad and You Should Never Say these Words getting hold of some racist jokes and passing them around, feeling subversive...
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Jan 16, 2021 00:18
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Erich Maria Remarque is CANCELED for glorifying war!
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Jan 17, 2021 10:01
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Wasn't the point of The Great Gatsby that he was a terrible person?
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Jan 17, 2021 10:08
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More that he was a fool who martyred himself for someone who would never reciprocrate his feelings. It's a more romantic telling of the capital-coup chuds and Trump.
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Jan 17, 2021 10:36
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The Lone Badger posted:Wasn't the point of The Great Gatsby that he was a terrible person? Are you expecting a YA author to be 1) literate 2) not a total piece of garbage human? None of the three examples make any sense and they only serve to "prove" that kids should be forced to buy her books instead of reading the classics.
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Jan 17, 2021 11:12
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The Lone Badger posted:Wasn't the point of The Great Gatsby that he was a terrible person? No, it's that they're ALL terrible people. By the way, y'all heard about the prequel that just got released? 
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Jan 17, 2021 15:03
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No naked ladies in the eyes like the original. 0/5.
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Jan 17, 2021 15:12
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C.M. Kruger posted:Erich Maria Remarque is CANCELED for glorifying war! These tweets are my favourite brand of baby brain YA author takes. I think the most recent dust-up is when some author claimed that getting The Odyssey removed from the curriculum was a win because it's.... a novel about men I guess? Not enough diversity? The portrayal of Circe is reductive towards women??? idk. *Yes, I know it's not technically a novel but ykwim.
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Jan 17, 2021 15:56
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steinrokkan posted:Are you expecting a YA author to be 1) literate 2) not a total piece of garbage human? None of the three examples make any sense and they only serve to "prove" that kids should be forced to buy her books instead of reading the classics. Hey, could we not do this thing where we casually label a whole genre dominated by women as writers and readers stupid garbage for dumb illiterates? If anything it kind of shows your hand when defending the cannon of classical literature that is anything but that.
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Jan 17, 2021 17:24
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I am baffled as to how anyone takes away 'Jay Gatsby's behaviour is okay' from that story though. I mean it doesn't work out great for him.
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Jan 17, 2021 17:29
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Yes, but at no point does Nick turn to the audience and tell them that Gatsby was a liar and a bad person and we shouldn't feel sorry for him. Every novel has to have subtlety of a Christian Hell House otherwise who can say what the author's intent was!
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Jan 17, 2021 17:34
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Sisal Two-Step posted:Yes, but at no point does Nick turn to the audience and tell them that Gatsby was a liar and a bad person and we shouldn't feel sorry for him. Every novel has to have subtlety of a Christian Hell House otherwise who can say what the author's intent was! If there's one thing high school English class taught me, it's that each novel has one and only one correct interpretation, and you'll get points off if you don't know it.
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Jan 17, 2021 17:38
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lord funk posted:If there's one thing high school English class taught me, it's that each novel has one and only one correct interpretation, and you'll get points off if you don't know it. One time in an English class - I was about 13 or 14 I think - we were offered a snippet of a poem that goes: A violet by a mossy stone half-hidden from the eye Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky The teacher asked me which image I thought most beautiful and I chose the star, and she immediately asked three or four other people, who all agreed the violet was the prettier image and I was wrong. Apparently I'm still annoyed about that. Also it's Wordsworth I just discovered from google.
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Jan 17, 2021 17:43
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High school literature courses suck absolute rear end but that's because they're taught terribly. The books themselves are actually generally okay and the reason why the selections skew weirdly is frequently because they have to appeal to demands from anxious conservative parents worried that if you have a book where someone says "maybe society is hosed up somewhat" their precious Thurston might not want to say a prayer before dinner every night, so teachers have to stick to things which are protected by nature of being "classics". literature curricula are hosed up enough that you don't need to invent weird hypotheticals about how Great Gatsby is about how Jay is cool and good
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Jan 17, 2021 17:53
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A lot of people, even on this very forum, literally just think 'If the protagonist does it, it must be right' and it takes incredible argument to even begin to shake that line of thought.
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Jan 17, 2021 18:02
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there wolf posted:Hey, could we not do this thing where we casually label a whole genre dominated by women as writers and readers stupid garbage for dumb illiterates? If anything it kind of shows your hand when defending the cannon of classical literature that is anything but that.
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Jan 17, 2021 18:46
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Hey could we not do this thing are we try and own people while pretending to be woke. Kind of gross
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Jan 17, 2021 18:54
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I'm not pretending anything. I am sincerely disgusted by whatever capitalist brain poisoning has convinced thousands that a market sector defined by its adherence to an eighth-grade reading level and obsessed with formula is not only the most valid space for women as writers but more valid as writing than books written for adults even by women. It's a transparent co-opting of social justice as a marketing hook.
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Jan 17, 2021 19:08
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