I recently finished reading Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini and it inspired me to write a piece on one of the world of literature's most common blueprint: the perfect male love interest.

Basically, a Gary Stu.

if anyone's interested, you can read more at my blog.

Are we seeing a resurgence in "challenging" fiction, to compete with our new Golden Age of television and give us something that movies and TV can't? Terry McMullan over at The Guardian thinks we just might be.

 

"As the introduction of photography affected the role of painting, or as film altered the place of novels in the 20th century, new narrative forms are inevitably affecting the place and purpose of the novel. As the basic need for storytelling is catered for to a large extent by TV dramas, it may be that readers turn to the novel for something else, something new."

also posted at elfswood

Is it just me, or does it seem like every time you write a negative review of a book, someone somewhere is going to take offence at it?

Maybe it's my writing style, as sometimes when a book riles me up enough, I tend to let the bad words fly and bitter sarcasm show. And more often than not, especially amongst my more popular reviews posted at goodreads, I'm going to end up insulting someone.

So this little post is just to clear up once and for all: my opinion of a book do not reflect my opinion of the people who like (or dis-like) it, and it is never ever in a million years my intention to give the impression that it does.

 

I'm fairly certain this is also true for all the other reviews out there written by other readers/reviewers/bloggers. So at the same time, this post is also a call for fellow readers to not take reviews personally. If there are reviews that attack readers personally (and I'm sure there may be a smattering of those around), then my advice is: do not feed the troll.

But this also opens up an interesting question: Why do we tend to get offended, or maybe slightly irked, when someone happens to absolutely loathe your favourite book?

Maybe answering these questions can help us understand, and later completely shrug off -- or even come to enjoy -- negative reviews of books we love.