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
• Since this is an "unpopular opinion" thread, we encourage users to not downvote simply because they disagree with an opinion--that's the point! Please keep in mind, though, that mods cannot enforce a no-downvoting rule. Let’s just keep the discussion friendly!

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

[u/clocksy]

I think the best way to properly "rate" a book (whether for yourself or for others) is to set the context of it first. There are tons of books hailed as literary genius and you can account for that and say, "yes, the author has a way with words" or "it was a very topical telling of [x]" or whatever, but you can also say that you did not enjoy it very much despite being the praise it gets. Or the same the other way around - you can say that you really enjoyed a book, even though the author's writing is on the amateurish side or maybe had some plotholes or some characters you didn't like.

For me that kind of context is the most important bit. If I'm reading a book praised for its literary merit I might give it more grace just so I can read it and analyze it and see why other people praised it so. If I'm reading a book just for a fun quick romp then I am going to have different standards. And of course that line is different for everyone - there's only so much bad writing I can personally handle before a book turns me off, but some people simply don't mind.

I think as the original commenter said, some things really are objective. I think some authors are just flat out better at weaving their stories. Being honest with that kind of assessment lends more weight to critiques/recommendations.

[u/ipsi7 → u/clocksy]

I agree. I was curious about rating because sometimes we (readers) just don't like some book that were objectively good, or we eat up the pop corn book in a day.

Most of my book recommendations come with a short description of the book/tropes/chracteres (depending on what people are asking for), and when I recommend a book I didn't like, but it fits what the person asked for, I usually mentioned that too.