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| Home > Reads > Please don't ask me for my opinion.... |
| Please don't ask me for my opinion.... | | Date Created: Nov 10, 2004, 12:41 PM |
So a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...
I received an email yesterday from an author who noticed that I mentioned his book on my blog. Now, I can't imagine he actually read my review, because his email was polite and my review was not positive. His message was of the "Thanks for reading my book, email me back, I'd like to chat" kinda email messages.
First, I thought the email was strange. (Still do.) Even so, I found myself sitting squarely on the horns of a dilemma. (Ouch!) Should I email him back, as he invited me to do? It seems rude not to. If someone said, "Hi" in an elevator, I wouldn't just ignore them. I wouldn't like it if they did it, and I'd suspect immediately that they were from the South. But, I still wouldn't ignore them. (No, I don't answer every email I get...obviously I just delete spam, and general announcement kind of mail, but if someone emails me directly and isn't selling something, I'm likely to answer it ... unless they're creepy, or a clown, or they use the words nipple, supple, and moist in their email.)
Because if I email him, and then he emails me back, and then I email him, eventually he's going to find out that I thought his book was filled with one dimensional characters who sleepwalk through a one dimensional plot. One of the (very) few sane reviewers on Amazon compared this to a Harlequin Romance novel, and I agree.
(If you want to know what's really screwed up....I actually read the sequel too. It was worse. Totally a "Scooby-Doo, Old Mr. Potter dressing up to scare everyone away from the gold and it would have worked too if it weren't for you meddling gay frontiersmen who have sex all the time" story. But I got through it in a couple hours, so it wasn't a huge time suck.)
But I don't want to be rude.
See, in spite of a couple posts in this blog, I generally don't like to be rude. Manners make the man, I believe. The fact that so many people scoff at the very suggestion that common courtesy is important simply enforces the idea in my mind. I was, in fact, going to remove a recent post because I thought it was too rude. I still believe everything I said in that post, but I suppose I could have said it as forcefully without being quite so...well....rude.
Yes, I know that giving one's opinion is different than being rude. And you can make the argument that "he asked for your opinion so it isn't being rude if you tell the truth and you can do so in a kind, but honest way." Yeah whatever. Shut up. I hate it when people make good arguments.
In the end, I responded with a polite email that didn't tell him what I thought of his book. Sort of a "thanks for the email" kind of message.
And instead of telling him what I thought, I've now devoted yet another blog post to that book (and the sequel), and I talk about him behind his back.
Which seems rude. |
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