My friend, David, wrote a book about his experience as an indie author. He is proud of the work and as an avid reader, I leapt to support him & acquired a copy.
Some backstory, I predominantly read fantasy stories, but I do dabble in romance and romantasy. I love stories that depict strong, capable women overcoming challenging situations. David is well aware of this. He’s made comments in the past about me reading "smut" and I’ve always taken it as him attempting to joke. I also have read his other two books published before the one discussed below. While I thought they were mediocre at best, I was willing to give this one a go as it’s non-fiction and figured he may be better suited for more straightforward content than more imaginative fiction stories.
The very first page of the prologue had a line that caught me off guard. "That’s a good little bibliophile keep reading this nonsense. See? I put some smut in my book. Hope that was good enough."
I laughed, knowing this was wild for him to include given comments he’s made before and continued on reading until I got to the next jaw-dropping snippet. "This book is going to be very different than most of the smut, oh my bad, romance novels… Now, I know I already lost a lot of you because I called your *precious* guilty pleasure smut. Get over it. We all know what it is, and what it does for you."
My heart sank. Was this really what he thinks of me? That’s I’m consuming literature about bad-ass women with swords because a few scenes describe the sexual acts as graphically as they describe beheading the villains? That all romance novels inherently contain "smut" because they are love stories?
I finished reading. It didn’t get better. I then left my honest review of the book on Goodreads.
David and I have mutual friends who read romance, romantasy, and yes at times "smut". I encouraged them to read the book and leave reviews. Some of my guy friends aren’t happy about this and are saying I’m an asshole. I tried explaining that when an author publishes a book, they subject their work to the opinions of readers, and I was valid to share my honest opinion on the book. It also isn’t unheard of to recommend books to other readers that they would take interest in, so it isn’t wrong of me to tell our mutual friends to read it.
Here’s where I may be the asshole, I hadn’t left a review on Goodreads before so I made an account specifically to review his book. That’s where I am wondering if I might be the asshole since this wasn’t normal for me to review on that platform. Most of my reviews are on Fable or Bookmory, but his book wasn’t on those platforms.
To my knowledge, no one has told David yet. I’m sure he’ll know if/when he checks the book reviews.
So, am I the asshole?
\*As a disclaimer, all direct quotes are available in the sample pages of the book you can read before you purchase the book. They’re publicly available material.
NTA. He published a book, it is now out for ANYONE to read and you recommending it to people (no matter the reason) is fair game. In fact, if they’re buying the book, your helping your friend get more sales!
So you’re not the asshole, but it doesn’t like this relationship should go any further. He’s purposely putting you down in a book I assume he self published (what self respecting editor would let him put down readers in a book). My guess is that his books are bad, he realizes it, and instead of improving his craft he’s decided to blame you.
Why would you recommend a book to people that you didn’t like?
NTA
Can you recommend it to me?
Nta but why are you friends with this guy?
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Im confused. Did he write an entire book roasting you? Was this a biography of you in insults? Is this post an attempt to sell this book of pretentious insults?
It wasn’t about me, it was predominantly about his experience as an indie author. However, he constantly dragged romanace and romantasy readers and authors throughout the book and we’re supposedly friends. It feels like a Mean Girls burn-book more than a “helpful guide” to indie authors.
I dont understand that since he basically seems to have written a book demeaning an audience he doesnt write for, to or about.
Why would anyone go to him for help? Has anything he written been particularly successful?
Yeah this honestly sounds like really poor form from someone who is very bitter. I assume part of what he was talking about was some of the difficulties that come from being an indie author, trying to find/build an audience, maybe having a niche genre and such. The way to do this is not to put others down – that really does just make the author sound pretty bitter especially when there isn’t any valid critique – simply put downs.
I don’t know. Maybe there’s an audience for that kind of thing – it’s not me. I don’t read smut myself but I don’t care to have a go at anyone who does either. Reading is great, each to their own. If people want to read smut, go for it. If people want to read about someone who is angry because people want to read smut… a lot weirder in my opinion but sure…go for it lol.
Did he ask you to read it and/or review it? Has he asked for your opinion on it in person? He’s opened himself up to reviews so no issue there, I’m just curious if he’s blind enough to have actively asked you to read it/share your opinion on it? Lol.
NTA. You were honest about your experience and just shared it with friends who might be interested.
NTA He published his work and now it’s up for honest reviews – Once you as an artist put out your work (novel, song, movie etc) you have to accept the fact that people will have opinions on it that you might be annoyed by. I don’t think you did anything wrong.
I would have closed the book at the first insult and tell him I couldn’t read it. ESH
You didn’t recommend them a book they “would take interest in.” You recommended a bunch of romantasy and smut readers a book that insults them and their reading tastes within the first few pages. Then encouraged them to post their most likely negative review.
Despite all of this debate with your other friends and recommendations you’ve given, you haven’t talked to David once or told him you were offended. You posted the review and now you’re sitting, hiding, triangulating the conflict, waiting for David to see it and react.
Encouraging your friends to read and be offended or hurt by the book and David’s perception of them is where you became an asshole. You were hurt by David so now you want them to feel just as hurt and betrayed.
So ESH.
Stop being a coward. Either tell David that you were offended and have a conversation or stop trying to triangulate by involving other friends.