Happy Friday everyone!
I’ll be out for the weekend and I won’t have time to congratulate you on Mother’s Day, so I’m doing it now. Hope you guys have a great time with your moms, grandmother, kids, friends, siblings, and/or fathers.
Author Jill Sorenson has an interesting post over at A Little Bit Tart, A Little Bit Sweet, in which she talks about snarky reviews and wonders if authors should be reviewers or not. It’s an interesting theme to me as reader and reviewer. My personal opinion is that authors are readers and so they can and should express their opinions and reviewing is part of that. However, I understand that other authors may not feel that way. Maybe there’s an unspoken rule or code about authors reviewing books.
"I love author reviews! Most authors keep it positive and that’s fine by me. Thoughtful criticism is great. Snark-as-entertainment is tougher to get behind. Coming from another author, it can sting more."
I enjoy snarky reviews when the reviewer does it for fun and once in a while. If a blog keeps writing snarky reviews of books they consider bad, it makes me wonder if maybe they actively look for stories they won’t like. Since I read reviews to find new books, a blog that only gives negative reviews -as hilarious as they may be- is just as pointless as one that gives nothing but positive reviews. I have written snarky-ish reviews, but I try not to do it regularly because I don’t want to make anyone feel bad for liking a book I hated (even if I'm not always successful at it).
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Our friend nath, who blogs at Books, Books and more Books, asks: what is Women’s Fiction, and how is it different from Chick-Lit and Contemporary Romance?.
I think there are quite a few differences as well as some similarities. Chick-Lit is usually about young women and there's only one main character, whereas in Women's Fiction ensemble casts are more common. Romantic interests are usually part of the stories, but never the main focus. I enjoy all three genres although I lean more towards Romance (no surprise there!).
What happens when a story has all the elements of a Chick-Lit book, but the main character is a man? This is a trend I’ve seen lately and I call it Dude-Lit. I’m talking about this over at Heroes and Heartbreakers today, but I’m not exactly sure when. I think the post goes live at noon, so make sure to stop by and tell me what you think.
ETA: the post has been rescheduled for next week. I´ll let you know when it goes live
"For me, women's fiction can contain strong romance threads or romantic elements, but it's more about the journey of the heroine than the HEA ending. As a result, I often associate books with older heroines or heroines with grown children to women's fiction."
I think there are quite a few differences as well as some similarities. Chick-Lit is usually about young women and there's only one main character, whereas in Women's Fiction ensemble casts are more common. Romantic interests are usually part of the stories, but never the main focus. I enjoy all three genres although I lean more towards Romance (no surprise there!).
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ETA: the post has been rescheduled for next week. I´ll let you know when it goes live
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I’m sure you have heard of the latest plagiarism case that this time had a book blogger as protagonist. Sunita from Vacuous Minx, has an excellent post on Plagiarism and the lack of consequences.
Plagiarism won’t go away and neither will plagiarists (even after they get caught). And what’s even worse is that the victims, as well as the readers and bloggers who called out those cases, end up getting hate mail and labeled as mean girls. The good news is that honest readers and bloggers are here to stay, and if that fails, there’s always Karma.
"There will always be plagiarists. It’s human nature to want to find an easy way out of a difficult spot, and people will give in to the temptation. But how often plagiarism will occur will depend in part on how lucrative it is. The most recent story involves the YA blogger who plagiarized a number of posts from other bloggers. But there were other plagiarism stories that week as well. You just didn’t hear about them. And next week, or the week after, there will be another one somewhere."
Plagiarism won’t go away and neither will plagiarists (even after they get caught). And what’s even worse is that the victims, as well as the readers and bloggers who called out those cases, end up getting hate mail and labeled as mean girls. The good news is that honest readers and bloggers are here to stay, and if that fails, there’s always Karma.
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Did you see Time magazine’s cover? The woman on the cover is Jamie Lynne Grumet and her three-year-old son. I’m not sure if she’s still breastfeeding him or if that was just posing for the picture. But if she is, her breasts look amazing! I don’t mind the idea of someone breastfeeding for so long, but that cover looks wrong. The kid standing on that chair and dressed like that, it makes him look older and there’s something off-putting about that pic that has nothing to do with the breastfeeding.
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Don’t forget to enter Sarah Mayberry’s contest. She’s giving away three copies of her latest book, Her Best Worst Mistake and talking about self-publishing, the possibility of writing a single title and her next project.
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First, thank you for wishing me a happy Mother's Day. It was very nice of you. :)
ReplyDeleteNow, WHAT is what that Time cover?! Me no likey. :-(
That, my friend, is what we call Shock Value... LOL It sure has people talking about it.
DeleteThanks for the pimping, Brie :) You have an awesome week-end as well.
ReplyDeleteThat Time cover is just bad :( Poor kid when he grows up ^_^; That is going to haunt him his whole life.
Yes, that is one embarrassing pic!
DeleteHope you had a Happy Mother's Day, Brie!
ReplyDeleteThe young boy on the cover of Time looks much older than three!!! I don't really care for the cover.. because I think they made the boy look out to be much older and more mature than he really is, hence they are going for shock value and not really emphasizing the nurture value, which is really what that's all about, isn't it? It doesn't bother me one bit that some moms breastfeed until 3 or 4. It's not harmful to the child physically or emotionally [he will probably be weaned way before he starts kindergarten and promptly forget IT ALL way before his 8th birthday. Trust me.] and in the end ... it's really no one else's business.
Thanks, Christine! Hope yours was great also.
DeleteThe two things that bother me about the cover are the sexual connotations of the picture (and just writing the word sexual in this context makes me feel like I should be in jail), and that the lead article’s title says “Are You Mom Enough?” What is that supposed to mean? That if you don’t breastfeed you’re not a good mother? How mothers choose to raise their child is their business and theirs alone.