A quick bitch

I realize that I really only blog under two circumstances: one, when I have gone away from my daily routines and therefore have a different point of view on it, and two, when I need to bitch about something that irks me. This post is of the latter variety.

I'm irked most recently by the comments I'm getting on a reading-related web site I belong to. The idea of this site, ostensibly, is to rate and review books you have read and share these with others in the spirit of sharing books and ideas, a conversation of sorts. By way of one's review, you state your opinion of an individual book. I haven't updated my list in a long time, so finally today I did and I added the 7th Harry Potter book because I thought it was a satisfying end to the saga.

I'm an unabashed HP fan and have been from the beginning and that's no secret to this blog. And I also know that there are plenty of people who don't like the books, or are turned off by the hype and attention. You know what they say: you can't please all the people all the time. Show me a book that's won the Pulitzer or the Nobel and there will be a group of people who will tell you why the book didn't deserve that prize and was a waste of their time. These are opinions.

So I find it a little bit irritating, like I do when I'm at the movies and a bunch of teenagers loudly begin acting out in a crowd to draw attention to themselves, that as many as four people so far felt the need to go out of their way and comment on the fact that I like Harry Potter books by posting me how much they don't like them, and what a waste of time they clearly are, and how only sheep would ever read them (I'm paraphrasing :). What would be more to the point, and useful and interesting, is to tell me what books they DO like, and why. Trashing something I love just makes me think: why should I bother to look at your book list when we clearly have opposing tastes?

End of bitch session.