It’s Friday and you know what that means? A brand new Let’s Talk Bookish. Today we are going to be talking about author controversies and whether or not they impact my reading choices as a reader. Thank you to Jillian over at Jillian The Bookish Butterfly for the prompt this week.
If you don’t know what Lets Talk Bookish is, it is a bookish discussion that was created by Rukky over at Eternity Books and has been hosted by Aria over at Book Nook Bits ever since April 2022. It is where book bloggers, like myself, talk about topics of the week. Whether it’s talking about author controversies which we will get into today or wondering if there can be too many retellings. So without further ado, let’s get into this week’s post.
Prompts:
For this topic, Jillain wrote that she thought of this topic because of the situation with Cait Corrain, the author who lost her book deal after posting fake negative Goodreads reviews of other books in attempt to sabotage those authors. Did you hear about the Cait Corrain situation? Do you often keep up with or read about author/bookish controversies? Do situations such as this one impact your reading choices?
Did you hear about the Cait Corrain situation?
Yes. I think that if you are within the book community in some fashion, you heard some version about the author that was going around leaving fake reviews and bomb rating books making it near impossible for her to get read her book once it was published. Especially when the majority of the books that she was reviewing bombing under a fake name were books written by POC authors. And truth be told, those are some of the best books to be released if they aren’t already.
Do you often keep up with or read about author/bookish controversies?
I honestly don’t keep up with author controversies as much as I would like. I do think that I only hear about the controversies when they get attention on Twitter, Booktok, and occasionally Booktube if some of the creators that I am following are talking about it. But other than that I don’t hear much about controversies. And lately, it’s by authors that are first-time authors or authors I have never heard of and probably would never have read from in the first place.
And as for bookish controversies, it’s kind of the same thing. I don’t hear about them unless they are getting attention on the three big platforms that I am on that I mentioned above. I do try not to follow problematic creators. Because they are known for being problematic and they have shown it over and over again.
Do situations such as this one impact your reading choices?
It helps me know which authors to not spend my money on. Because if I want to read an SJM book then I can use the library or a way that the money doesn’t go directly towards her. This is not me saying “Don’t read SJM” because I know that we all have one or two problematic authors that we continue to read even though we know that they are problematic.
There are this week’s Let’s Talk Bookish posts. Do author controversies stop you from reading them? I would love to know and if you want to talk about this on your own blog, feel free to use the questions above just make sure to give Jillian credit due to the fact that this was their idea.
Kathryn Books 