Disagree with me, but don't tell me I'm wrong. #bookreviews #amreading

I review books on this blog, and when I do that I also post my reviews on Goodreads and an Amazon because posted reviews are helpful to authors (especially independent authors) even if you don't like their work.

So recently I posted a review here - and on Amazon - and my review clearly stated that my opinion was the opposite of many of the others I had seen to date. In fact, the book in question had over 2500 reviews already on Amazon and most of them don't like the book. I liked it.

Now I'm all for discussing different view points on books - even with strangers - and I often do with my friends. Some books they love and I don't. Some books I love and they don't. Some books we all love or hate. I think (barring really poor writing skills) much of how we feel about a book depends on our life's experiences and where we are in our own lives at the time we read the book.

What happened when I posted my review on Amazon though, was something different altogether. I found it really odd that right after I posted my review - again on a book that already had over 2500 other reviews - I was almost immediately notified that someone had commented on my review. I'm a curious person so I checked it out. In retrospect I get the feeling this person may have been waiting for positive reviews to go up so they could pounce on them.

The commenter basically wrote three paragraphs explaining why my review was WRONG. Not saying she/he disagreed with me - which I would have been fine with - but actually telling me I was wrong in how I felt about this book and trying to convince me to change my mind.

I politely responded that we would have to agree to disagree. 

She/he then went on again to tell me why THAT was wrong and that my review was still wrong and how if the author had submitted the book in a writing class it would have been graded an F. (Was this a frustrated writing teacher? Or perhaps a jealous wanna-be writer whose own writing received an F in class? Hmmm.)

Again, I commented about how wonderful it is that we can each have different experiences with the same work and the beauty of it all.

Then he/she got a friend to tell me I didn't understand what the first person was trying to say - which I did, all too well.

Eventually I just gave up trying to get them to agree to disagree. Neither commenter was going to change how I felt about this book and I was never going to convince either of them that it is okay to have a different opinion. 

So the moral of this story is: If you disagree with me on whether a book is good or bad or in between, that's all well and good and I'd be glad to discuss our different view points. But if you think you are going to change my mind about how I feel about a book - don't even bother to try. It's just going to make me angry and I'm going to think you are a bully. Capiche?

And how was YOUR day? ;)

Have you read anything lately where you disagreed with the majority of reviewers? What did you love/hate that everyone else didn't?