Alright. So I am a bitch. Kinda thought I was for a while but after the week of annoying Karen’s telling me about how my opinion is wrong and blah blah blah. Bitch mode kicked in. So the poor person that didn’t follow me, doesn’t know me from a bar of soap (which is obvious since they decided to have the below convo with me) tried to suggest what I was doing was wrong.

Can we stop this? Please?

There are soo many people that are expressing how other people need to live their lives or do things in their lives and I’m over it. I honestly don’t mind you sharing your opinion in your story or writing a rant about it or anything like that at all. I just don’t give a shit about your opinion when you slide it into my DM’s.

Please don’t slide into my DM’s, don’t comment preachy shit at me. I honestly could not give two fucks about it.

I don’t want to be slapped in the face with your opinion. I am not a sheep. So stop expecting me to act like one.

Alrighty, since we covered that I am a bitch we can move onto the next question of the evening: Is a hashtag around a negative review a bad thing??

Example:

Review: I think The Cruel Prince was miserable #thecruelprince

I posed this question in my feed today because I believe that hashtags can be used in a negative review. I mean don’t tag ( @ ) the author because that just makes you a dick but by all means use the hashtag ( # ).

A lot of people raised the fact that they will search the hashtag on Instagram to find reviews of the book. Which makes perfect sense, you would search for the book on Goodreads so why not use the hashtag when you are scrolling on Instagram.

Well I bring this up because I had the below conversation about the above photo and I just had a week of dealing with Karen behaviour so I wasn’t nice enough to politely deal with more of it.

The following is unedited (spelling mistakes and all!) The original comments are still on my photo and at NO point is anyone to attack the person that made these comments!!!

Stranger: Hey! So authors often go on tags of their name or series to see book love would you remove those tags? It can be really depressing for them to see this kind of content. Of course it’s okay for you to hate the series, but maybe it’s not so nice for the author to see it.

Me: Thanks for your feedback but at some point an author cannot completely avoid reading bad reviews. It’s comes part in part with the job. I didn’t tag the author but if I am going to post a book I will be using the book hashtags. We cannot shield authors from bad review, it is bound to happen with everyone having different opinions an tastes but if an author actively seeks out reviews on their books, then what they find is on them, not on the reviewer. We post negative reviews on our social media and on goodreads so either way, if they search for it. They will find it. And maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing, sometimes public feedback can shape their next book. There is a difference between me tagging the author in a bad review and using a hashtag, which by the way I won’t be removing.

Stranger: Authors spend years and years on their books. I’ve spent 4 years writing and rewriting mine. Reviewers do not understand how much work goes into writing a book. I think blatantly disliking a book and tagging the book itself is in itself disrespectful to the author. This is your account and you should do what you want but you to be aware that authors have feelings and that seeing negative reviews (especially with your specific picture that is extremely negative and honestly kind of rude) will affect them

Me: I think finding negative reviews of your own book is called life and people need to stop being sad little potatoes because life isn’t always rainbows, there have to be some negative elements to life as well as work. Living a sheltered life is just sad. Bad reviews happen and to be honest if you go out and look for it and can’t take the criticism about your work, then it shows how shallow you are as a person. It’s a hashtag, not the end of the world. If authors can’t take negative criticism then maybe they shouldn’t’ look for it or maybe a change of career.

I didn’t get a response.

But here is my thing. This hashtag for review doesn’t just stop with books, it goes to restaurants, business, holiday destinations and well, everything. Let’s face it, anything that we can review will have a hashtag associated with it. But should we not use a negative reaction with a hashtag?

The answer for me is no. Straight up no. We shouldn’t not be hiding a book we didn’t like!! We should be posting about it, we should be talking about it and we should be using the appropriate hashtags!

For those that don’t want to hear this, I’m sorry but life is hard. There is gonna be some hard shit. There are gonna be negative aspects to your life. There generally always is. But it isn’t something to shy away from. It is just a part of life.

Let’s look at work for instance. Surely where you work will either have negative aspects to it (annoying boss, bitchy co-worker) or you could have a negative review on your performance, but this is a part of work. This is A-D-U-L-T-I-N-G! (I say sitting in trackies and a Snape hoodie I got from the kids section)

So by removing a hashtag for a negative review means that people are ONLY going to see the positive and go out and waste their money on a book. (Obvs if they didn’t enjoy it) So if we can’t use hashtags, then let’s just remove all negative reviews, get rid of goodreads, because the poor sweet potatoes of the world don’t like it…. Don’t talk about books that you don’t like because the authors and the Karen’s of the world will hear it and be upset. Get them some tissues pleaseeee.

Legit rolling my eyes at this.

Look I think Jay Kristoff is a rad as hell dude, but I’m sorry Nevernight fucking sucked for me. If you need half a book to get somewhere well, ya lost me. But I will still use #nevernight and I will not tag him in the review.

Honestly, we can’t protect the authors of the world, at some point you will come across a review that was negative. Shit happens. Take a breath and have some chocolate. As an author there has to be some realisation that not everyone will love your work and that is part of the job. I mean have you seen Mark Lawrence, he likes all reviews on his book, negative or positive. He gets it! I think at some point if you believe that as an author that everyone will love your books then you are seriously in for a sad wake up call.

News flash. Not everyone likes Harry Potter. Not everyone likes the Hunger Games and there are people out there that hate The Hobbit. So what if they post about not liking it.

There is always talks about how you find things in common with other people. There is one bookstagrammer who is an absolute sweetie and I know that books that she loves I will hate but any book she posts a negative review about, I buy it. And guess what I love them. Because we all have different tastes and opinions and hair colors and socks and its just what makes us amazing. Chat about the negative books. You may even find more bookstagram friends.

Also can we pleaseeee stop spreading your opinions on other people. Legit telling me what I should use and what I shouldn’t use, do or say on my social media just drives me nuts. If I haven’t made it clear before IT IS MY ACCOUNT and I WILL DO WHAT I WANT.

I will never tell people what to say or do or post so I would hope that you return the favour and treat me with the same kindness.

And for those that don’t follow me and try to shove your opinion in my face, please don’t I don’t care. I don’t do it to you so don’t…. wait? Maybe I should do it to you. That’s it. That’s what I am going to do. Anytime someone shoves their opinion in my face. I might just have to comment on their feeds, “did you like the anal beads I sent you?” “How about that vibrator?” “Did you try and strawberry flavoured lube? Nice huh?” “You haven’t tried anal beads? Well maybe you should.” “Maybe just gag them and they will stop complaining.”

We all know I don’t have any shame.

I see things on bookstagram and in real life that I don’t agree with but you know what I do? I keep scrolling. My opinions are for me and not something that should be shoved down other peoples throats.

So what do you think?

Should we just ban all hashtags?

Am I still a bitch?

Are anal beads an appropriate dinner conversation?

Let me know your thoughts.

Love Blue xx