🌟 reading 1 star reviews of my favourite books 📖 as therapy for my perfectionism? ✍🏻

Hello friends! a silly little video here for you today of me reacting to one star reviews of some of my favourite books 😅 as a writer with a heavy dose of perfectionism, I think it can be helpful to remind yourself sometimes that even your favourite creative works aren't universally beloved - no art is perfect to everyone! but also this was just a bit of fun and I hope you enjoy!
Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson's channel: ‪@esmietheauthor‬
Leonie's video: • reacting to 1 star rev...
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BOOKS MENTIONED:
Circe by Madeline Miller
Happy Place by Emily Henry
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery

[@itseIv]

lol yeah if people can be violent towards a story about an orphan exploring the meaning of home and love then you understand that sometimes humans are capable of a specific kind of hatred you cannot do anything about!

[@marginsofmarisa]

I’ve never thought about doing this as an exercise for accepting criticism 😯 such a good idea! I think it’s interesting that a common thread throughout the reviews was that a lot of the books are “pretentious.” I think that just speaks to what you said about enjoying vibe books, which usually focus on the prose. I wonder what the common thread would be through all my favorite books 🤔 probably something about the characters being annoying

[@GraceEllerby]

definitely! it's kind of a fun way to work backwards and understand what it is that makes you love the books you love. I'd be really interested to see what you might discover about your reading taste if you tried it! ☺️

[@shalryma]

It's a very good exercise. I do my best to consume variety of creators with different reading opinions, to avoid being in the bubble as much as possible. It's so hard sometimes, hearing opinions vastly different than your own, immediately wanting to argue and discuss - and choosing not to do so, cause it's only books, there's enough of them for each one of us to have plenty of likes and dislikes :D The bigoted comments do test my patience though. As a fellow Small Gods stan (my favourite Terry Prachett book!), I noticed that enjoyment of this book vastly differs depending on the reader's upbringing - people who didn't grow up with religion don't seem to get it as much, some others might not be in the place where they can accept a satire about such topic. As someone who grew up religious (and left for multitude of reasons, including corrupted church structure), that read was incredibly validating for me.

[@GraceEllerby]

totally agree! there can be that instinctive defensiveness when someone doesn't like something you love, and then taking a deep breath and remembering it's just a book 😅 and that's a very good point about Small Gods - I think I relate to that story for similar reasons to you, but I can totally see why it might not work for someone who has a different background or beliefs

[@Nickvk4]

That's quite a smart excercise! But also, respect for being able to read such negative reviews on your favorite stuff. Because if I do that, I feel it sometimes causes me to doubt my love for that specific thing and not enjoy it as much anymore? Not always of course, but I'm afraid that it will. But soooometimes it actually has understandable criticism. Like Imogen is my favourite book and character, but I could actually see the "overthinking too much" element. I relate to that aspect of the character massively, but if you don't I could see why it could be annoying (even though as you said, that's kind of the point). Everytime she would overthink I was like: "Awww Imogen, honey, don't do this to yourself" but also "Hey that's me!" 😂 And exactly that combination made it so relatable and heartwarming to me. But I could see that might not be enjoyable for everyone? Fuck the biphobic comments though 😅

[@GraceEllerby]

hahaha totally feel the relating to an overthinking character 😆 I think it can be good to try to understand why a book might not work for other people the way it does for you, but you do have to be able to compartmentalise it to an extent so that it doesn't ruin the book for you too! it's trying to decipher which points are objectively valid and which are personal opinions that I struggle with sometimes 😅

[@ukfroggy]

Lol, defo an humbling experience, or did i mean rumbling. I think criticism whitout constructive comments are just forgettable, they are poor lazy opinions pieces.