Yeah IIRC it’s from pre-trial detention, and he’s addressing his jury as a plea for lenience. The very framing of the story tells us pretty clearly we shouldn’t just take his word for it.

I feel like the good self-help books aren’t marketed as such. Behavioral science and similar fields have a lot to teach us about ourselves, but the information doesn’t come packaged as some easy how-to guide for a better life.

Unlike Fight Club and American Psycho, I don’t think I’ve ever come across someone in the wild who liked Lolita because they identified with Humbert Humbert. I find it pretty bewildering that some people have such bad reading comprehension they take Lolita as some kind of romantic story about forbidden love.

Personally I’m a huge fan of the novel and will definitely read it again. The disturbing parts are easily worth it, just like they are in Blood Meridian (the other novel in my personal top five with some really brutal scenes).

I don’t have one aside from the kind of obvious low-hanging fruit already mentioned in the OP, where there are clear ideological implications to the rating. People read for different reasons and have different standards, and someone loving a book that I consider poorly crafted or just too superficial for my own tastes doesn’t really say much about our compatibility in my experience.

I was in a relationship with someone who had a drastically different taste in books for twelve years. Although we ended up separating eventually, we got along great, and I don’t think our tastes in literature hinted at any of the fundamental differences that made us break up.

However, exchanging a few comments about Lolita on this post made me realize I’d be more likely to swipe left on someone for their one-star reviews (unless it was just a not-for-me indication for personal use, the way some people use goodreads). I’d have no problem dating someone who wasn’t interested in reading Lolita, for example, but I’d probably lose all interest if they genuinely tried to argue that it was a bad novel.

What factors are you using to group together American Psycho and Lolita? Just having protagonists that are horrible people?

I still haven’t read the former, but from having watched the movie and read discussions about the book, it doesn’t seem to have a whole lot in common with Lolita.

Specifically how would you be harming people by reading this book?

I think the reason people are guessing you’re a teenager is that you come across as though you haven’t actually formed any opinions on the topics you’re talking about. Rather, you appear to be doing your best to adopt and comply with other people’s opinions.

Same here. He was really good at writing about ideas that are difficult to write/talk about in such a way that it felt like he just slipped past all the obstacles and transported the ideas to my head.

I think the correlation comes more from people with a propensity for collecting or consumerism than it does from the cozy warm drinks. You only need one mug for those drinks.

Presumably they spend a bit more time reading than just 20-30 minutes before bed. If you read an hour to an hour and a half per day instead, you’d already be comfortably in that 50-100 range.

I haven’t read it, but I’ve read most of Hemingway’s short stories. If his novels are anything like those, 8th grade is just too early. Please tell me you chose that book rather than had it assigned by a teacher.

Many of which aren’t generally considered classics.

I loved it, but I’m not sure how it was groundbreaking in the way OP is asking about.

Have you read Orwell’s Politics and the English Language?

It’s even more applicable today than the stuff in 1984 IIRC. (It’s been a while since I read the latter.)