Explanation - invariably I will read a fantastic book, beautifully written with a sweeping or moving story that is profoundly impactful…and some amateur reviewer will have written, “That book is so boring! Blah, blah, blah, nothing exciting ever happens!” 🙄
When I read these, I often pause to try to imagine what sort of book those reviewers WOULD like, lol. No doubt its probably an elitist, pompous exercise…but its fun imagining for a moment a book filled with non-stop, over the top action, gory or imaginative deaths by the dozens, torrid romantic liasons, CIA and KGB and SS agents around every corner, etc. Ive been tempted to write that book, tongue in cheek, just so those reviewers would have something to be happy about.
Then I thought…maybe someone has already done this? Intentionally written a book so egregiously over-the-top that even those action-aholics might be tempted to say, “too fast, and too much excitement…” in their reviews?
Well said. My rather superficial observation was just the feeling I get when, after enjoying a fantastic, packed with content book, I read a one star review that says it was horrible, or boring, or confusing, etc. I always think, C’mon, man! If you didnt like that, what DO you like?!?
I have been part of r/fantasy and follow fantasy “booktubers” etc. actively for a couple of years now. Its insane that even though we all seem to share the love for the same genre (Even subgenre most of the time), the difference in enjoyment can very drastically. I can agree with 1 person on many series (Rating / enjoyment vise), but can also massively disagree on other books. Sometimes i can’t fathom how a book got a good rating by someone i usually agree with, or can’t understand how someone gave such a bad rating to a book i thought was wonderfull.
There is 1 person in particular that is the biggest mystery to me. We share the same favourite author and seem to like the same kinds of books outside of fantasy. But besides that, we very drastically. Like i can’t agree with 85% of the reviews he makes, but again, we share the same favourite author. So sometimes i can see how 2 people can love the same book, but for 2 completely different reasons. I often notice that when someone criticizes something in a book i just read and i think to myself “Huh, didn’t even notice that”. Or when someone raves about something in a book, and to me that thing they are raving about is so unimportant, i didn’t even notice its “brilliance”.
Yes tastes and preferences. Very weird things that seem to change from person to person, even from time to time.