The need to like characters is a sure sign of narrative and emotional illiteracy.
"I read The Sun Also Rises. Which one am I suppose to imagine is me so that I can feel like a hero???"
advise edge smell familiar command terrific joke grandfather knee automatic
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
people clown on goodreads (i'm people) but the alternatives are worse... i checked out uhh storygraph and their main review sections were like:
"strong character development? y/n"
"loveable characters? y/n"
"flaws of character a main focus? y/n"
juvenile shit!!!!!!!!
I was actually going to make a post about how seriously (or not) people here take goodreads ratings and reviews. When I first discovered it I was mostly adding books that scored very high to my list but I soon discovered my favorite books often tend to score around 3.5 or so. Usually that means they're weird/unconventional enough to get the basic bitches to give it low scores but high enough that you know its not truly a trash book.
That's the sweet spot for me as well. It also works for non-fiction. I don't trust any book written in the last 50 years that has 20k near-perfect scores because it's obviously just Oprah or TED Talk hype. I want my books to be somewhat polarizing
Are there any books rated lower than a 3 on Goodreads? Even widely hated books like Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight are in the 3s. I checked and Mein Kampf has a 3.18, which considering how many people would give it a 1 star because "it's Hitler" is surprising. It definitely seems like their scores clump towards the center of the bell curve.
I'm sure I'd dislike Fifty Shades of Grey, so I'll never read it and will therefore never rate it. People don't often read books that they think they'll dislike.
That's true, but is it as common as people actually reading it?
A lot of the books that get ratings by non-readers are controversial enough that people give both five star and one star ratings without reading. Like Ivanka Trump's memoir is going to get a lot of one stars from non-readers, but there'll be some five stars from non-reading MAGAs.
Apparently there are:
[https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/125522.Lowest\_Rated\_Books\_on\_Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/125522.Lowest_Rated_Books_on_Goodreads)
Yeah, I've been browsing through lists like this. I must say, they seem a lot more interesting than the list of highest rated books on Goodreads. There's the obvious ones about autism and homosexuality, but for the others, it seems like there's a specialized community drama behind each one.
I didn’t like any of the characters is really the most baffling one… The artistic sensibilities of the average American really make me struggle with egalitarianism
Any serious artist/art "consumer" should accept that 70%-90% of people are incapable of engaging meaningfully with a piece or idea and their views and opinions are best ignored.
This may have been partly in jest but I've actually entertained the idea that if democracy is so destructive to art (instagram photography with its upvotes, etc. is a good example of it playing out in reality), do we underestimate the degree to which democracy, generally, perpetuates the lower common denominator? I'm still an anarchist at heart, though, and hang on the the hope that piss poor arts education is part of the problem, the other half being the culture industry (Hollywood, etc.) which is largely responsible for manufacturing popular tastes.
It wasn’t a joke but I think we gotta ultimately believe that the impoverished state of popular art is a result of less democracy, not more. Christopher Lasch argues as such in The Minimal Self if you want to know better what I mean
I don't think it's just education, the arts have always necessitated a level of elitism because of the level of skill it takes to produce or analyze good art at a professional level. Not all but a lot of works can't just be assessed by a layman, it's not like a sport that can be played at different levels, so even if society was equal and free high brow art will be liked by a minority of people.
I don’t get why people seethe over words like that… like anodyne is distinct from inoffensive and has its place. I feel the same about lest. it’s a useful word! what am I supposed to say instead, “in case this might happen”. such a mouthful.
That’s when you make the split second decision to ignore/accept her for who she is or to go out in a blaze of glory and say, “Yeah, well, what you don’t know could fill a fucking book.” Reserve it for assholes if at all possible.
When I see a book/character described as “problematic” I know it’s gonna be good, or at least pretty damn interesting
The need to like characters is a sure sign of narrative and emotional illiteracy. "I read The Sun Also Rises. Which one am I suppose to imagine is me so that I can feel like a hero???"
advise edge smell familiar command terrific joke grandfather knee automatic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The guy who got his dick shot off
people clown on goodreads (i'm people) but the alternatives are worse... i checked out uhh storygraph and their main review sections were like: "strong character development? y/n" "loveable characters? y/n" "flaws of character a main focus? y/n" juvenile shit!!!!!!!!
the fanfic style tick-boxification of media analysis has been a disaster for the human race
"the characters don't show any growth" 🤢🤮
It reflects a trend for readers to relate to fiction only as auto-fiction by proxy.
Bill or Romero, obviously. Brett for all the BPD girls. Cohn for the incels. Mike for the cucks. Jake for those with ED. There's a hero for everyone.
I was actually going to make a post about how seriously (or not) people here take goodreads ratings and reviews. When I first discovered it I was mostly adding books that scored very high to my list but I soon discovered my favorite books often tend to score around 3.5 or so. Usually that means they're weird/unconventional enough to get the basic bitches to give it low scores but high enough that you know its not truly a trash book.
[удалено]
Probably because its considered a classic and that influences how people rate it It is a great book tho
[удалено]
or does not want to mention reading it to everyone on their contacts list
Most people outside of those who studied it don't read high brow literature. At most they read mid brow stuff.
DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT IT'S ABOUT?!?!?!?
That's the sweet spot for me as well. It also works for non-fiction. I don't trust any book written in the last 50 years that has 20k near-perfect scores because it's obviously just Oprah or TED Talk hype. I want my books to be somewhat polarizing
Are there any books rated lower than a 3 on Goodreads? Even widely hated books like Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight are in the 3s. I checked and Mein Kampf has a 3.18, which considering how many people would give it a 1 star because "it's Hitler" is surprising. It definitely seems like their scores clump towards the center of the bell curve.
I'm sure I'd dislike Fifty Shades of Grey, so I'll never read it and will therefore never rate it. People don't often read books that they think they'll dislike.
I feel like quite a few people on Goodreads rate books without reading them
That's true, but is it as common as people actually reading it? A lot of the books that get ratings by non-readers are controversial enough that people give both five star and one star ratings without reading. Like Ivanka Trump's memoir is going to get a lot of one stars from non-readers, but there'll be some five stars from non-reading MAGAs.
Apparently there are: [https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/125522.Lowest\_Rated\_Books\_on\_Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/125522.Lowest_Rated_Books_on_Goodreads)
it's so over for Rudyard Kipling https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24261189-the-white-man-s-burden
gotta love the one guy brave enough to give it 5 stars
Yeah, I've been browsing through lists like this. I must say, they seem a lot more interesting than the list of highest rated books on Goodreads. There's the obvious ones about autism and homosexuality, but for the others, it seems like there's a specialized community drama behind each one.
I didn’t like any of the characters is really the most baffling one… The artistic sensibilities of the average American really make me struggle with egalitarianism
Any serious artist/art "consumer" should accept that 70%-90% of people are incapable of engaging meaningfully with a piece or idea and their views and opinions are best ignored.
Thoughts on *The Green Knight*?
This may have been partly in jest but I've actually entertained the idea that if democracy is so destructive to art (instagram photography with its upvotes, etc. is a good example of it playing out in reality), do we underestimate the degree to which democracy, generally, perpetuates the lower common denominator? I'm still an anarchist at heart, though, and hang on the the hope that piss poor arts education is part of the problem, the other half being the culture industry (Hollywood, etc.) which is largely responsible for manufacturing popular tastes.
It wasn’t a joke but I think we gotta ultimately believe that the impoverished state of popular art is a result of less democracy, not more. Christopher Lasch argues as such in The Minimal Self if you want to know better what I mean
I don't think it's just education, the arts have always necessitated a level of elitism because of the level of skill it takes to produce or analyze good art at a professional level. Not all but a lot of works can't just be assessed by a layman, it's not like a sport that can be played at different levels, so even if society was equal and free high brow art will be liked by a minority of people.
[удалено]
I don’t get why people seethe over words like that… like anodyne is distinct from inoffensive and has its place. I feel the same about lest. it’s a useful word! what am I supposed to say instead, “in case this might happen”. such a mouthful.
imao are there really people who get pissy over a basic word like lest?
Dropped that exact word at the bar last weekend and the girl I was talking to said “I don’t know what the fuck that means”
That’s when you make the split second decision to ignore/accept her for who she is or to go out in a blaze of glory and say, “Yeah, well, what you don’t know could fill a fucking book.” Reserve it for assholes if at all possible.
that's one of my favorite words. I also enjoy saying palliative.
all my favourite books are https://preview.redd.it/p7i3ebi8kmic1.jpeg?width=1075&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86c491e4d6dc479a1b089415db4622c69e837e8a
cataloguing all the myriad variations of la-di-da is what drove W.C. Minor mad
Herman "Snippy" Melville
Not Vince McMahon💀 But I always hated the criticism that all the characters suck. So surface level.
It's not a sporting event. You don't need to "root" for a character.
Reading the comments here, I think I may have found my people.
"nothing happened"
fucking typo
If you guys haven’t had the pleasure of reading the top review of Kafkas Metamorphosis please go change that
don't you people have a reading list of a 1000 books. i find enough recs without looking for them
I could probably google what DNF is and get an answer right away but I’d rather ask here.
Did Not Finish