Advertising Fail

This is what happens when your ad software uses algorithms to create personalized ads:

You know, I think I can keep track of how many Harper Lee books I’ve read without any software at all!

GoodReads Pet Peeves

Listen, I love GoodReads. But it also annoys me on a fairly regular basis. I know the best life advice for the internet is “Don’t read the comments” but GoodReads is really… only comments. This advice cannot be followed there.

Pet Peeve #1: My friend Akilah pointed this out, and it had been bugging me too. Why do so many people start their review with a summary of the book or basically their own version of the flap copy? There’s a synopsis at the top of the page! I do not read reviews on GoodReads to know what a book is ABOUT. I want to know what you THOUGHT of it.

Pet Peeve #2: Adults who review YA with ten thousand disclaimers. “No, I know, it’s YA, but it’s actually good!” Listen, people, lots of YA is good. Clearly you just enjoyed a YA title! Why denigrate the rest of it?

Pet Peeve #3: Adults who feel the need to review books from their childhood that they haven’t read since with lots of rude remarks like “oh my god, I used to love this, I haven’t read it since, I’m sure it’s terrible now” and give it one star. I don’t understand the point of reviewing a book you haven’t read in ten to twenty years just to say it probably stinks now. The other year I actually gave myself a little project where I went back and reread favorite books from my childhood to see how they stacked up now. This was actually when I rediscovered A Summer to Die which I must say is usually the book I list as my favorite. (I also just realized a couple weeks ago how much I still adore Logan Likes Mary Anne! and not just because it contains two of my favorite things, cute boys and kittens.) Yes, people, you may now be ashamed at your childhood crushes and taste in music and literature. But also trust that sometimes you did spot quality. Also trust that authors who write for children aren’t all idiots just spewing out disposable crap.

Pet Peeve #4: Reviewers who say things like “I was hoping this book would be like this other book. It wasn’t. ONE STAR.” I mean, sure, judge a book any way you want, that’s fair. But it seems awfully unfair to automatically downgrade a book because it wasn’t more like something else, especially when most books don’t make promises to be like other, unrelated books.

I guess, looking back on my list, this is more a list of pet peeves with GoodReads users. Sorry, site!