Not A Good Read
So I’m currently in a metaphorical battle to the death with “Tevin” from Goodreads. For anyone who is blissfully unaware of what Goodreads is, let me enlighten you. It’s a website where people can read a book and then post a review about it. I’m on there as an author—authors can have a “dashboard page” where all your books are listed, and this is where the fun began. Last January, the publisher of both my short story collections apparently had a chat with God, who advised him to stop being a publisher and “unpublish” all his company’s titles (and I’m not sure why “God” told him to do that—if I was having a conversation with an invisible deity, it would tell me that if I wanted to stop publishing, I should at least keep the active titles available instead of crushing people’s hopes and dreams, and also drink some wine and get a therapy kitten). Anyway, the one particular book is still on my author dashboard and I don’t want it there because it NO LONGER EXISTS. In addition, I WROTE IT and I HOLD THE COPYRIGHT. But try telling any of this to “Tevin” who has been insisting that it’s impossible to remove my own book from my own author page. His rationale? It is “crucial that our members are able to find books they may have read or been interested in reading.” No, Tevin. It’s “crucial” that homeless people don’t freeze to death in parks, or that we take care of the environment before climate change kills us. It is NOT crucial that “Danger Kitty” can read my non-existent book and post a random review. And that’s the other bizarre thing about Goodreads—there is no consistent system for book reviews. It’s a free-for-all, with everyone and their brother/sister reviewing other people’s writing in the most nonsensical way. Here’s an example:
Book That Was Written By Someone
Review 1: Bob gives this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars and says “It was a great read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Review 2: Frank gives this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars and says, “I didn’t enjoy this book. It was poorly paced.”
Review 3: Danger Kitty gives this book a rating of 1 rubber duck out of 5 slices of cake and says, “This is the best book I’ve ever read in my life.”
(Side note: Danger Kitty reads and reviews approximately 1 book every 2 ½ days, so I have my doubts about the integrity of their opinion).
Another example: my first book, Smile, was a Young Adult novel. It has two 5 star reviews, and a 1 star review. The 1 star review is from a man in his 70s. Did it occur to him as he began to read the story of two weeks in the life of a 16-year-old girl struggling to come to terms with her father’s death that he perhaps might not be the target demographic for this novel? Yet, he persevered, and went to the trouble to give it a bad rating. Also, his profile picture is right there next to the rating, and it’s SOMEONE I KNOW. One day, I might mention it to him, but honestly, given the random nature of Goodreads, it could mean that he adored it. Who the hell knows?
But back to “Tevin”, who claims to be a Goodreads Expert and who simply cannot delete my non-existent book from my author page because “it wouldn’t be fair to the readers.” So I went in and edited the book description to “This book no longer exists.” And now I have to wait for a “Librarian” to approve the change and you just know this person will NOT be an actual librarian, just like a “Pet Detective” is a dog food salesperson (I found this out the hard way when I saw the job ad, got super-excited, and clicked on the link, only to be bitterly disappointed.)
At any rate, just for the record, I give Goodreads 0 out of 5 llamas.
Update: I kind of won. It’s a bitter victory though.
