A few days
ago, Cait @ PaperFury tweeted about a problem regarding one of her reviews. She
was getting a lot of nasty comments due to her one-star review of Finding Aubrey because people seemed to
think she was mocking the book when in truth, she explained that the reason
behind her rating was that she thought the book was mocking social anxiety. I
cannot say a thing about the book because I haven’t read it nor I plan to do it
but what bugged me the most was how closed-minded people can be. I’ve never got
a nasty comment on any of my reviews but it’s not the first time I see this
type of behaviour.
Opinions
are opinions; they differ and we should respect that. Now, that doesn’t mean
one can’t be open to comprehend the other. For example, while everybody was sharing
their love for Throne of Glass, here
I was finding it quite meh and giving it 2 stars. I honestly didn’t understand
what everybody saw in it. I mean, of course I understood but I didn’t feel the
same way. The explanation is thus: we have different tastes. What might make me
go crazy of excitement, others may hate profoundly and vice versa. And I
respect that. I didn’t went on full rant mode to people who adored the book
just as I wasn’t rebuked by anyone for not liking it that much and believe me,
there are loads of people out there who LOVE, yes in capitals, this series.
However, the
main problem comes when instead of expressing our opinion in a well-mannered
way, we yell at each other’s faces like our lives depend on it how wrong the
other one is, and how they feel offended by what we said, which is utterly
ridiculous because the reason behind a review is not laughing at anyone, is
putting into words how we felt about books and nothing else. People sometimes
like to play the martyr way too much for my taste when there is no reason for
it. Please stop. And even sometimes the outcome is people talking about
deleting their reviews because of the hate… just how wrong is that? Deleting a
review is deleting our opinions, our thoughts. Okay, yes, it’s only a review
not the end of the world but still nobody should feel bad about disliking a
book.
Obviously
we live in a free world and we can express our opinions but that doesn’t give
you the right to be rude about it. Why? It’s very simple, let me explain… if I
write a negative review and a person comes to me to tell me in a respectful way
why she/he loved that same book, my opinion will still be the same but I could
appreciate what they are saying and understand what the person saw in the book
that I didn’t. On the other hand, if the person not only goes on the defensive
but also is being a boor, I can guarantee you all that I will become the most
closed-minded person you’ll ever meet and instead of making me get their view,
I will hang onto my opinion like it’s the most precious thing in the world and
needs to be protected. And we sometimes post things believing it’s not too
harsh when in reality, it is.
The most
important thing here is that NONE OF US should neither deal with hurtful
comments nor feel bad about our points of view.
The magical
thing about differences is that it prevents us from being all the same. How
utterly dreadful this world would be if each and every one of us had the same
thoughts!
Have you
ever had this problem? If so, how did you feel about it? If not, how
would you cope?