Inspired by Shark Week on the Discovery Channel- Parajunkee.com is hosting Snark Week! It will run from Aug 11 – Aug 15th and I seriously thought it would be fun to play along with this.
For Today's Snark Week Book Blogger Challenge:
Snark Attack! Tell us how you really feel about a particular blogging subject. Let it off your chest. This is your chance to just EXPLODE!
I'm going to share my thoughts on something that has to do with reading instead of blogging. My topic is book skimmers. This is something that drives me batty. People who say that they've read a book, judge it, give their opinion on it, when in fact the entire book has never been read.
I've got a great example for you. I let my friend, I will call her Sarah, borrow my one of my books and was excited for her to read it. After a month or so had past, I asked her what she thought of it. Sarah's response, "it was alright. I thought it was kinda confusing and I couldn't relate to the characters". 😱
I was like, "What?!, back the truck up girl. Didn't you think (insert huge spoiler) was completely awesome?"
Sarah's response, "I don't remember that". So then I said "well what about (insert crucial moment)?" Once again, Sarah was unsure what I was talking about. Finally she came clean and admitted to just skimming through the story. She said that she often does that when she reads a book with more than 300 pages. 😠 I let it go. But it seriously irked me.
The closest thing I have ever done to skimming is those moments when something so exciting is happening that I try and read faster then my mind can process what I'm seeing. I then need to stop, close my eyes, take a breath and tell myself to slow down.
Please don't get what I'm saying confused with not being into a book and because of that not finishing it. I admit when I don't finish a book and I don't review DNF's because I haven't read all of the content, which is what the majority of people do. After all, how can you really give your opinion on something that wasn't finished? Maybe the best things about it happened near the end. So my beef's not with DNFer's, its with the half readers.
I guess my point is that authors work hard on their novel's. Lots of love, blood, sweat and tears go into making them possible, and I think they deserve to have all of the words in the story read, not just half of them. Sorry if I've stepped on anyone's toes with this subject, I'm just being honest =D.
Are you feeling slightly snarky this week? Join in the fun/ rant and check out the deets here: http://www.parajunkee.com/2014/07/28/announcing-the-snark-week-book-blogger-challenge/
Oh my gawd yes. Your friend is one thing, but there are book bloggers that do this. You'll know it because their review on the book is ALL jacked up. They'll cite something that didn't really happen that way, or they'll claim something about the ending, which yes - happened, but it made sense because of this that or whatever. So you know, they only read a bit of the book and then skipped over to the ending. Just so they can throw up a review. But yeah, totally get this.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice knowing that other feel the same way about this Rachel. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
DeleteI can't imagine skimming a book. I wouldn't even have done that in school when forced to read something for class.
ReplyDeleteI will confess I have posted a few DNFs. The few times that I actually didn't finish a book it is because the characters or the story premise was so awful I knew I would not have a happy review if I actually made it to the end. As much as we love to talk about 5 star books, I think it is only fair to point out if there is something so wrong about a story that I couldn't even finish it.
I feel that posting about a book that you DNF is fine as long as you say that you didn't finish it. There are lots of reason why someone wouldn't finish a book and sharing why you didn't like it is ok. However, passing a DNF like you've read the entire novel is another thing all together. Thank you for sharing your honest opinion Lucy!
DeleteThat is a really good point. I hate it when that happens. It has happened to me a few times as well. I however am guilty of posting DNFs. But that's mainly when I start reading a book and then there's just something (mainly the writing) that has me putting it down and thinking nope there's just no way I can read this. :)
ReplyDeleteI really like your first Snark Week post, and I look forward to more this week! :)
My Snark Week Post
Whitney@Shooting Stars Reviews
Having a book that you DNF happens to all of us sometimes. Like I said in my post my problems not with that, it's with the skimmers that pass it off like they've read it. Thank you for dropping by Whitney =D
DeleteI totally agree with you! I don't even think of 300 pages as a long book...in fact I often feel robbed when I buy an eBook and discover it's only about 100 pages long. I think that should be prominently displayed on the sell page, since that's a novella, and charging the same as for a 500-page opus is not fair. I usually prefer longer reads since that gives the author more time to create whole, rounded characters.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you mean Fiona. I don't see how an author could write a well balanced novel if its under 300 pages. That's why I rarely give novellas a 5 star rating. An exception to that is the novellas in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. That woman has talent because they were excellent.
DeleteThanks for visiting =)
I just have to say MOST books are at least 300+ pages! She just must not be into reading b/c 300 is nothing. That is a short book compared to what some other book lengths are.
ReplyDeleteMariya I completely agree. Honesty I think my friend just likes to say that she reads, but doesn't actually =S
DeleteThank you for your comment.