Hello readers! This weeks LTB topic is a juicy one. We are talking about whether an author’s behavior decides whether I will read their book.
Before we go any further, know these are only my opinions. Please do not attack me if you do not agree with what I have to say.
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originated by Eternity Books and is currently hosted by Book Nook Bits. The accompanying thumbnail was also designed by Book Nook Bits. Each Friday, bloggers craft posts where they engage in discussions centered around the designated topic for the week.
Prompts: For this topic, Jillain wrote that she thought of this topic because of the situation with Cait Corrain, the author who lost her book deal after posting fake negative Goodreads reviews of other books in attempt to sabotage those authors. Did you hear about the Cait Corrain situation? Do you often keep up with or read about author/bookish controversies? Do situations such as this one impact your reading choices?
In short, yes an authors past behavior will effect whether I want to read their books. Mostly because I talk about the books I read on multiple platforms. I don’t want to promote terrible people or risk reading a book by an author who might attack me for my opinions.
I did hear about Cait Corran over on Booktok. It wasn’t just that she posted negative reviews on other people’s books. It was that she only posted one star reviews of POC authors while writing fake 5 star reviews for her own book.
I do think behavior like this would make me not want to read that author. She sounds racist and I am not. I personally think if someone is doing active harm, they shouldn’t do it without consequence.
I of course know that people can change. Think about Brandon Sanderson for instance. Many years ago, he wrote this horrible anti-gay article. And once he was called out for it, he took accountability and took back every single thing he said. He seems to have grown as a person and hasn’t ever said anything like that again.
When it comes to me being a person in the book community, I don’t want to be associated with terrible people or companies either.
St. Martin’s Press and Wednesday books has an employee who not only posted racist things about Palestinian people, but she also is a person who decides who does and does not get ARCs. I don’t want ARCs from them if certain people are not allowed to get them based on their skin color or any other reason.
I don’t think I told you guys this, but I had an ARC that was going to come to me from Wednesday Books. And, I emailed them and told them I don’t want their ARCs if they are not going to speak out against discrimination. I then emailed St. Martin’s Press and asked for them to speak out. They have completely ignored me.
I actively comment on Wednesday Books and St. Martin’s Press Tik tok, IG, and Twitter accounts to take accountability.
And, I also don’t want to read books that I can’t talk about online. I think it would be totally different if I were just a casual reader and didn’t promote books online.
Another big one is JK Rowling. She could be doing anything with her time and money, and chooses to spend all her time being hateful on Twitter and donating to changing laws in Scotland against trans people.
She tried to increase hate against trans people by accusing them of doxxing her knowing that her home is a publicly known mansion called the Killiechassie house.
I can honestly talk about all the harm that JK Rowling has done all day.
One of her biggest allies, John Boyne, author of the Nazi sympathizer book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I am actually horrified that I ever enjoyed this book or movie knowing what I know now.
The son of a Nazi that high up would’ve been in the Hitler Youth and would’ve 100% known what they were doing to Jewish people along with the fact that the kids were indoctrinated into hated them.
Another side of this is authors who attack reviewers. Think about Matt Shaw for instance. He was so upset about a reviewer that he made a dedication to her in his disgusting torture porn book about Amber Heard. I don’t like Amber Heard either, but that is crossing a line.
I just have a hard time tolerating people who can’t tolerate others. Whether it’s people who are different from them or other people who have different opinions than them.
It is different for me SOMETIMES if the author is dead.
If the dead author’s book has the N word in it or other types of racism, I’m probably going to steer clear of their work. For instance, I was reading a Doctor Doolittle book out loud to my step daughter once when she was 4 years old, and it was extremely racist. We ended up quitting the book.
It not only had quite a few uses of the N word, but there was also a black character who bleached his skin so he can look like this white prince he likes.
Roald Dahl is another one. I was reading through all his books. The Magic Finger is a weird one, I’d recommend anyone reading that.
But, the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is riddled with jokes against Chinese people and even a disabled Oompa Loompa. “The country is so full of Wings and Wongs, every time you wing you get the wong number.” AND “Okay, Chu-On-Dat. Let me speak to Premier How-Yu-Bin.” Even the president of the US saying, “chew on that, Ch-On-Dat!” when he told this person off. And, many more. It was like this book was written by a different author.
I just think about the children who will be reading these books and I can’t believe this is what they thought was okay to put out there for them.
I’m sorry if this post has been really long. I just have so many authors I can talk about either that I would keep reading or would depending on their past behavior. I just fear talking about it sometimes because I don’t want to be attacked. Some people see criticism of their favorite authors or books as a personal attack.
If you are a person who is boycotting St Martin’s Press right now, there is a call to action coming up that I’ve been trying to spread the word about everywhere.
This post was created by Allison Wolfe for www.allithebookgiraffe.com and is not permitted to be posted anywhere else.
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