My weekly column, My Reading Life, is live now. This week's rant is "Authors, Publishers, Reviews, and Amazon" at the link below.

I got steamed about this today because I'm very tired of being regarded as a creator's audience and asked, more or less peremptorily, to promote the creator's work in the exact and precise way that creator wants it to be done. I review books and movies and suchlike because I want to; because I love them, love the medium, love that sharing my enthusiasm or lack thereof can help a reader find or avoid something that they wouldn't have found or avoided on their own.

This rant is my response. Yes, it requires that you click on a link to read it; if that's too much trouble, by all means don't. Just don't say anything to me about it, since the idea that a mouseclick is an imposition on you doesn't say good things about you to me.

/rant *grrrrrr*

This is a good idea to encourage people to read books.

I read books on bus and train. If my city give free ride for book readers, then I would ride for free all the time. 

She is reading Rant by Chuck Palahniuk in this picture. 

**To read the full review, click the title!**

Let's just say that this is one book I rather forget I read. It's widely loved, so I know I'm the minority with this opinion, but it just pressed all the wrong, most aggravating and infuriating buttons for me. 

First there was the insta-love alert. Then the annoying heroine alert. Multiply personality disorder alert, and obsessive love alert. And those are only the ones I counted. So, if any of those are really not for your tastes—as they weren't mine—this is probably not the book for you.

I admit – this was an interesting choice of supernatural beings; trolls of all things! Of course, Hocking's trolls are the farthest thing away from the big, ugly boulders of rock or whatever we're accustomed to. In fact, they look like humans – only more attractive. Because ugly boulders just won't do as main characters, and we all know it.

There has been numerous incidents of authors claiming that they've been bullied and harassed and a few recently have decided to shut up shop and stop writing. However, after a big boost of support from fans and other sympathetic readers, they've decided to change to their minds. This post has covered the issues over the most recent author, Sarah Daltry,  who has decided to go down this route. The post also covers what construes as being bullied and using it as a means to promote the author to get attention which does end up being a positive thing. 

I can't not help being cynical when I hear about an author, especially one who has good reviews and a fanbase like this author has and while I am sympathetic to her issues and past, I do think it was a disservice to her fans and others.

But  authors who claims they being bullied by negative readers over reviews, posts and emails. Any person in the public eye is going to get flack and acclaim. It is part of the parcel of being in the public eye. Even big named authors will get crap thrown at them but they've not given up and carried on. I think what is really sad about this whole mess is that any time I hear about an author stating they've been bullied not only undermines and waters down the issues of what it means to be really bullied or harassed. It also makes me disbelief genuine cases and that is not good. 

Note: An English version of the letter is available somewhere farther down the article. 

But I would like to point something out: MRT fares are ridiculously cheap, charging half or sometimes even a third, of the fare you would have to spend if you took the jeep or the FX.

Every time the MRT and LRT companies express an interest in raising the fare, people take to the streets. They rally, they go on strikes, they rant on social media.

How then, do you expect to have a good service if you refuse to pay for it? 

Raising the fare by even one peso will generate millions of revenue, which can be used to make the rails a safer and faster transportation for commuters.

I'm not saying that it won't fall into the pockets of some corrupt asshole (because it probably will) but with a rise in transportation fees, people will expect a greater service from the MRT company. When that expectation is not met, strikes and rallies will invariably follow, which will result in either a rollback of fees or better service.  

Now for my red side to take over, 

I don't believe in censorship, especially not when it comes to someone's speech. The point of having a fucking Facebook page is so you can communicate with your customers, not so you can block their comments.

Your system sucks and you can't handle it when people tell you so?

What's the point of having a page then? 

Also, a "red" point of view on the MRT service.

These bastards make millions of pesos everyday and yet they don't improve the quality of service they have. I'm appalled at the sort of service described by the letter. 

I'm really just sitting the fence on what to believe of the MRT service. It's partly owned by a government organ (Department of Transportation and Communication) and partly owned by a private company (Manila Rail Transit Corporation). 

Is it the government's responsibility then, that the Filipino people be provided with a safe, efficient and convenient method of transport?

Or are we really just getting what we pay for?

Really, all I'm really sure of is how much I admire my friend, who has to take the MRT everyday and never even says a word of complaint about it.