Everybody won’t like what you write… and that’s OK

I saw a link someone shared on Facebook earlier about classic books with one star reviews.  The point of the article was that people have opinions and not everybody likes the same things.  It is a great motivator to see that even the “big guys” get their share of shade thrown at them. So I decided to look up some more and see what folks had to say.  These are actual Amazon one star reviews:

 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

hate this book

seriously that is all I have to say now:I hate this book. Now I’ll just need to say more because there has to be at least 20 words long. Really it is no different from many other magic books.

Divergent

It’s so SO awful

Thank God I didn’t buy the trilogy. I bought the hype well enough to purchase the first book on my kindle, and even that was a giant misstep. (If I’d bought it on paperback like a sane person, I could have resold it, and might not have felt pressured to finish it.) I wanted to give up on this book maybe a quarter through, as it wasn’t getting any better, but I convinced myself that I’d purchased it, there was no way of getting my money back, and I might as well see it through. I love Dystopian fiction, after all. I also hoped that maybe there was gonna be twist in the story that might compensate for the weak writing, ridiculous plot, and uber-bland characters. Nope. In fact, once it became clear what the “twist” and the ramping up of the plot was, I started skimming like mad. Oh man this is Young Adult in the worst sense of the term. It reads like it was written by a thirteen year old. I usually don’t feel inclined to leave a negative review as it was my own darn fault for subjecting myself to the experience and hell, if you like it, you like it. More power to you. But I hated it

The Firm

THE WORST BOOK I’VE FINISHED

This is the most boring,pointless book I’ve read.”It grabs the reader on the first page and propells him through 400 more” is the quote on the cover.I don’t know what kind of drugs he was doing, but he was not in his right mind when he said it. More like it holds the reader on the first page and drags him through 500 more. Pointless to waste your time on this book when you can read great works like “The Lawyer’s Tale” by Kincade.My point in writting this is to tell you “PLEASE DON”T READ THIS PILE OF DOG DOO!

The Fault In Our Stars

The fault in our literature

This is it.

This is the kind of title that probably pops up if you rated Twilight with 5 stars.

If thats you thing, whatever floats your boat.

I personally found this to be the most overrated story I’ve ever had the misfortune to read.

The kind of book you hear so much hype over and actually look forward to and the author actually looks like a decent human being and then you start reading and its like that sinking feeling you got when you sat and watched The Phantom Menace for the first time in the theater- you keep telling yourself it can’t possibly be as bad as your brain is telling you but soon you’re overtaken completely by that hollow ache of hope dying – slowly then all at once.

OK, so those are really popular books.  And popular books can’t be any good right? And we love to see people that sell out get what’s coming to them, right?  Well hang on just a second…

The Hobbit

I’ll stick to the movies

Love the films, but could not get through the book. It was a challenge to read. Maybe I didn’t like the author’s writing style. Very slow character and plot development and too many useless details. Gave up. .

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Most Overrated Book of the Century

I’ll admit this was an assigned book for school, but please don’t misjudge me. I have read other books Anna Karenina of my own accord and loved them, and I am not criticizing this book because of bitterness of being forced to. I actually had not heard much about To Kill a Mockingbird before I read it, due to the fact that I tend to read nineteenth century literature, and I started this book with a fairly open mind. As cliche as this story is, I thought that the plot had great potential for making a powerful book, but Harper Lee’s approach to writing it seemed a mismatch. The powerful theme served merely as a backdrop to a far less interesting story. There are points at which one can fairly hear the plot wheezing as it is being choked by Lee’s attempts at cuteness and nostalgia. The descriptive passages were rather crude, and at times the language became practically unintelligable. Am I the only person who despises dialect? There are two things I thought of that can affect the way people criticize this book. One of these is fear of disliking a book at the risk of being labeled a Philistine. The other of these is which books are read immediately before reading a book. The latter affected me in particular, as I was reading Madame Bovary alongside this book. The lack of any elegance and refinement, which is so abundant in Madame Bovary, made the primitive style of the writing even more displeasing.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: The Chronicles of Narnia

SUCKS

 It’s STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not a good story at ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! 0 STARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do not by it at ALL!!!!!!!!!

WASTE OF YOUR MONEY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pretty bad, huh? So what’s the point of all this? I showed you these to illustrate something.  As a writer, or an artist of any sort, you will make art and some people will love it. But some people will not.  You can be a really nice guy, and make the best art that you possibly can, and some people just won’t like it. AND THAT’S OK.

Here’s the takeaway:

Some people aren’t going to like what you do. Your art isn’t for them.

Find the people that love what you do and write for them. Make the best art you can, and make it often. 

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