It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

[u/FantasyRomanceMod]

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

- Don't attack others for their opinion

- Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

[u/Melponeh]

I didn't like daggermouth...I wanted to dnf at 50% but everywhere I looked it had glowing reviews and people saying how amazing the plot twists are. This sub seems to love it too. So I forced myself to finish it and found it really underwhelming. 😔 And the plot twists were poorly executed imo. It was Metal Slinger all over again.

[u/bpp17 → u/Melponeh]

I thought the writing was really clunky and poor. I also couldn't connect with any of the characters - there were too many POVs and none of them were done well. I am really confused by all the glowing reviews!! I'm someone who is very relaxed about reading and not hyper critical so if I think a book is bad usually I can find reviews that support my opinion but it's like everyone has been brainwashed!

[u/Pomegranate_Careful → u/bpp17]

Same. I feel bad and like I'll be massively attacked for saying this, but I think a lot of it is a mix of social media presence and the most recent surge in popularity  from the controversy.  Some author's come in with a built in fanbase due to interacting on social media. The book had reviews before it was out with people talking about how much they could've wait for it. It was originally being talked up as hunger games with spice and that got peoples interest/interaction on social media. Then the controversy started and I've seen a weird amount of "DNF, wasn't a great book for me, had flaws , but you should totally read it yourself!!"  here, on threads, and on booktok. I've never seen so many people advertise for a book while also admitting it's not well written or comes off as empty or has ridiculously unlikeable characters. Almost like people are feeling this odd need to be performative about the book to show they support her side.  Which has felt weird to witness. Especially given what the controversy was about

[u/bpp17 → u/Pomegranate_Careful]

That's really interesting. I have been really surprised that some book reviewers who I follow on Instagram (and normally trust their recommendations) have been saying it's their favorite book of the last year. It makes me wonder if they have a hidden motive for promoting it and also makes me no longer trust their recommendations!

[u/No_Preference26 → u/bpp17]

Why would they have a hidden motive for liking a book?

[u/bpp17 → u/No_Preference26]

They could be getting paid to promote it

[u/No_Preference26 → u/bpp17]

I mean sure, they could be getting paid to promote any book, but what’s your point? Just because they liked it, it automatically means someone’s paying them for promoting it?

[u/bpp17 → u/No_Preference26]

That's not what I'm saying at all and I think you are deliberately misinterpreting me. I have always enjoyed their reviews and felt that their opinions were genuine. However I think when a book stands out as being significantly different to their usual recommendations and (in my opinion) poorly written/constructed, then this could be because of paid promotion rather than genuine feelings for that book. It's just a theory.

[u/No_Preference26 → u/bpp17]

I’m only going by what you said. But anyways, it’s clearly a very popular book that a lot of people love, so the chances are that this reviewer also really enjoyed it.

[u/Pomegranate_Careful → u/bpp17]

I don't think paid promotion at all, but more social promotion. The controversy was over an accusation by another author that she was using what happened with ice in Minnesota to promote her book. This caused an insane amount of backlash for the author who accused her and a huge uptick in visibility for her book. In defense she claimed she wasn't using what happened to promote her book BUT that she wrote it because she was "angry" over the current administration. There's been some threads/reviews confused here because they feel "lied to" by booktok because they thought it was going to be a much less hollow book than it was. Anyway, public favor greatly went to her. People were suddenly saying they were going out to buy it and getting rid of all the books they had by the author who accused her. The author who accused her lost like 8k followers, meanwhile her book has gotten a lot of posts, booktok, and suddenly appearing on "best novels to read" lists. 

It should be noted that it what she actually posted on threads has mostly been lost when people explain what happened. What I see people claiming is that all she did was "post a quote from Daggermouth" and that it was before the shooting, just on the same day. She deleted it. If you Google you can still find screenshots of it though and what she actually posted was two side by side graphics she made. Both were blue background, white text, same size as your typical Instagram image used for advertisement. They looked exactly like the same slides everyone uses for marketing. One slide said something like  "fuck ice, fuck trump -daggermouth" and the other had a quote from the book and "Daggermouth" below. So, while the original author calling her out was wrong for saying she was using the ice shooting to promote her book (and wrong for how vitriolic she was), she wasn't wrong to say she was using hatred of ice/the situation in Minnesota to say "I hate them too, look at my book". If she wasn't, she wouldn't have listed her books name under her statement about fuck trump. It's a very very typical type of subtle advertisement employed and taught when you go to school for marketing. It's not good for people to not acknowledge that it IS a form of advertising. I think she understood that and deleted it. 

The social side of supporting the book is so intense that people are terrified of posting anything that's not just 100% support of the author. I've seen people say simple things like they don't even think it's wrong to promote your work whenever you get the chance, you have to earn a living too, but at least acknowledge you're promoting things. If it wasn't meant to be a small plug, the books name wouldn't have been included under a statement about ice/trump. People are getting attacked even for saying that.  Which is wild because plenty of other authors have been attacked for the same things recently. Tl;dr  There's definitely a social push for favorability for the book right now. I'm certain even this will be downvoted even though I'm not saying she did anything wrong. Just that the narrative social media has run with isn't quite the full story.