Am I weird that I find hatred a better book reaction than meh and a shrug?

[J.A.]

I was googling my author name the other day, and I stumbled across a review of my YA book in which the person related that my main character was one of her all-time most-hated characters (she apparently found her too "cocky"). Unsurprisingly, she loathed the book. :)

I'm kind of proud of this particular rip. I've always been strongly of the opinion that in so far as fiction goes, it should inspire some sort of decent emotion. That suggests it's at least working on some level (if only actualizing the fictional character enough). I can deal with people saying they hate my characters. That's not painful. That's kind of fun. I'm more upset when people find things boring.

For example, I may despise Wuthering Heights (and I do! Heck, I even made fun of it in my book), but I don't deny that it obviously has something going for me that it can arouse such a passion of disdain. There are roughly a metric truckload (I'm sure that's an SI unit) of books from that period that if I were to read, I'd merely go "Meh" and shrug at.

[Andre Jute]

Next week on ROBUST is "Hate Jeremy Week". I'll expect the check in my bank before then, Jeremy.

Couldn't agree more. An old standup comedian who travelled the clubs dropped in to hear me speak. (He had a sort of a connection to me, in that he and my father preferred to camp on the road rather than stay in country hotels of uncertain cleanliness. Their traveling stewards were cousins or something, so they camped together whenever they met.) I was speaking to aspirant visual artists at Ruskin about rejection and afterwards he took me to lunch (I paid, of course) to tell me, "You don't know anything about rejection. Nobody has ever ignored you." My girlfriend was a psychiatrist, and it really brassed me off that she agreed with him.

A metric truckload is as good a definition as any of a large quantity, once you give it TIR plate. (International haulier plate on really large transcontinental trucks in Europe.)

[Claudine]

I imagine as an author that you'd want more of a response than just Meh and a shrug. That doesn't do anything either way for you in terms of what was good and what wasn't.

[Katie]

Meh and a shrug is, to me, equivalent to a two star rating with no comment to say why. I'd rather have a one star that writes pages on why they hated it. Actually I had one of those a few weeks ago. I can't say I enjoyed it, but at least I knew she'd thought about it.

[K.A.]

I've had some odd reviews - and a few times my books has gotten some scathing comments.

I've thought about this for several days and still would rather get the silent 1 star than a scathing 3.

[J.D.]

J.A. wrote: "I was googling my author name the other day, and I stumbled across a review of my YA book in which the person related that my main character was one of her all-time most-hated characters (she apparently found her too "cocky"). Unsurprisingly, she loathed the book. :)

I'm kind of proud of this particular rip. ..."

Someone just gave my first book 1 star and shelved it under "kill it with fire". Should I be ecstatic?

[Andre Jute]

Might be smart to find out what he/she/it hates so much, and then to build a promotion campaign on it: "You too can find out how this dull clown for a moment felt so deeply that he/she/it reacted violently. Find out how to achieve that moment of intense feeling just once in your life. Read XYZ!"

[K.A.]

That is an interesting way to think about it.

I used to joke about the 'bland as an egg salad sandwich' comment I got.

[J.D.]

Andre Jute wrote: "Might be smart to find out what he/she/it hates so much, and then to build a promotion campaign on it: "You too can find out how this dull clown for a moment felt so deeply that he/she/it reacted violently. Find out how to achieve that moment of intense feeling just once in your life. Read XYZ..."

To be honest, I was already toying with the idea of doing something along the lines of "You'll love it or hate it, but it won't leave you indifferent..."

I can't imagine what people would find so rage-inducing about it, though, unless they have an irrational hatred of heroic fantasy or books about dragons or dragon riders, and they can't very well say they weren't warned about the content. But if I have learned anything since releasing my books into the wild, it is that the experience of reading a book truly is a joint act of creation between the author's text and the reader's psyche, and I only have control over, at most, half of that equation. People will respond to my work based on who they are and what experiences they've already had. Anyone who hates my work hates it, at least in part, because they are reading a book that was written for someone else. Not everyone is going to be my audience.

[K.A.]

"the experience of reading a book truly is a joint act of creation between the author's text and the reader's psyche, and I only have control over, at most, half of that equation."

WOW! That should be carved in stone somewhere!

[Katie]

J.D., I've found with my YA book that there are two things that get reactions from the readers - the female main character and the dragons. I've had reviewers who love the main character, who think the dragons are fantastic and others who call the main character 'stupid' and the dragons boring. Female leads and dragons - dangerous territory!

[K.A.]

There appear to be some readers who ONLY want to read Superman or Wonderwoman. No other characters are good enough.

[J.D.]

K.A. wrote: "WOW! That should be carved in stone somewhere! ..."

As long as it's not my tombstone, I'm fine with that idea.

[K.A.]

If we could chop it into a slogan - I'd put it on a t-shirt.