Must Love Books

Book Blogger Confessions is a meme hosted by For What It's Worth every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month.

This weeks question:
Have you ever loved a book that you know is not a great literary gem? Maybe it's filled with spelling errors, tired cliches, and is utterly cheestastic but you loved it anyway?
Yeah, it's a little book called "Twilight." Maybe you've heard of it? lol.
In all honestly, I love books that aren't "literary gems" all the time. To me, it's not all about the writing, it's the plot, the characters, how I felt while I was reading it. That's what truly makes it great. The books I like for their literary brilliance is far and few. I'd have to say the best one is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. Ever read it? It's fantastic.


How do you handle that as a blogger who is used to critical thinking and analysis? Do you pretend you never read the book - never to be reviewed or added to your Goodreads shelf :-)?

I wouldn't say that reviews are the outcomes of critical thinking. Most reviews I read (and write) are more of the thoughts of the reader and not in depth analysis of the book. Then again, when I think about the phrase "critical thinking" I automatically think of all those English classes I took in school. When you break down every little thing from the book (and often ruining it imo) and try to decipher everything that happened in it. That is not, and should not, be what a book review is.

So as a blogger, when I come along books that aren't very well written, I might possibly say something about it in my review, but if I loved the book, most likely I'll be saying why. As for my Goodreads shelf, I never hold back in those. I don't add a whole lot of people to my GR page, it's not a social tool for me, it's the site I use to help me keep track of my books. So I don't really care who sees what books I'm adding.

Do you write a review but maybe apologize and make excuses as to why you enjoyed it or are you bold and proud of any book you enjoyed?

No. No excuses. I'm not ashamed of the books I read.

Conversely - have you read a classic, that is considered a literary gem but you just didn't get it? Are you embarrassed to admit that or do you review it anyway?

I've read TONS of "literary gems" and think they suck big monkey turds. Like Wuthering Heights. By far the worst book I've ever read and I will never understand why people like that crap. Then there is things like Paradise Lost which is horrible. I honestly fell asleep every single time I tried to read that. Just because it's a classic and considered a literary gem doesn't mean it's good. It just means that old dead white guys from hundreds of years ago decided they liked it and thought everyone should read it and we keep going with that because they are "classics." Ugh.

There is a reason I was a horrible English Lit major. I disagreed with my teachers way too often for either of our likings. ;)