Link Du Jour: Author vs. Online Critic
The latest outrage in the book world comes from Kathleen Hale and her article for The Guardian ‘Am I being catfished?” An author confronts her number one critic.
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Aside from making the author look terrible, it brings up all kinds of questions about the current state of online book reviewing.
(Warning: the article contains occasional foul language)
Pretty wild, eh?
(Top Image: catfish gyotaku by Stephanie Sicore https://flic.kr/p/5Hr8wr)
Filed under: Link Du Jour
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
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That link was like a big old crazy train wreck that I couldn’t stop reading. The “Blythe”s of the Internet want attention. Don’t give it to them. The author taking things to the lengths that she did is quite disturbing. I’m not an author, but if you put your work out there, you risk it being reviewed. I only read reviews on Goodreads from people I know are credible. This whole thing does remind me of John Schu’s presentations to NC librarians earlier this month. He said that he didn’t believe in writing negatively about a book on his blog. After reading this article, I respect that practice even more. What did our moms teach us? If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.