Maybe You're Right and the Reviewers are Wrong

As an author who's done hundreds of readings and signings around the country, I've frequently been asked about books on the best seller list and books in the news. I learned a long time ago to be very careful how I answer those questions. At the beginning of my career, a well-known author had warned me to watch what I said in public about other contemporary writers. He'd made an unfortunate remark about one of his peers when he was starting out, and it hurt him for years afterward.

So I often turn the question around and ask what the audience member thinks. Usually the response is along the lines of "I didn't like it." Of course, that's why they asked the question in the first place. They wanted the opportunity to express that opinion publicly, and with an author present. Somehow that makes it all more official or permissible--or both.

Everything is Illuminated is one novel I remember many people at various venues saying they found frantic and phony one year when I was out on tour; The Lovely Bones was another book people complained about on a different book tour. I didn't like either one for various reasons, but all I said about each book was that the writing didn't draw me in because the voice didn’t work for me. That's the territory I stake out: technique.

One other example: the rapturous reviews for the movie of Gone Girl, which pretty much followed the whole reviewing world's take on the book. Seriously, was there a newspaper reviewer in the country that wasn’t crazy in love with Gillian Flynn's novel?

Friends whose opinion I respect urged me to read it, and I tried more than once. Really. I never got very far. I found the writing off-putting. I tried her other books to be fair, and they didn't work for me either stylistically. I also guessed where Gone Girl was going.

But that wasn’t the first time a universally-acclaimed book didn’t work for me. I reviewed for the Detroit Free Press and other outlets for over a decade and I sometimes found myself at odds with the reviewing consensus.

The same goes for movies too. Recently, I enjoyed Saltburn for its satire but many reviewers thought it was a mess. And All of Us Strangers, billed as a sensual romance, didn’t strike me as especially sensual or romantic, unlike the far more moving Fellow Travelers. More than that, the opening scenes read like a mystery even though it’s not billed that way, and my spouse and I quickly thought of a better film from 1999 with a similar premise. While the critics listed on Rotten Tomatoes almost universally loved it, if you read audience reviews you’ll find lots of people expressing reservations.

So if you pan a book or movie that the world is doing cartwheels for, remember: it doesn’t mean you’re wrong or that you’re alone. Just brush it off if someone takes your taste personally, as an insult, because that’s about them, not the book, the movie, or you.

Image by Sammy-Sander from Pixabay