The dark side of blurbs.

[seanan_mcguire]

I read a book recently* that I should have adored. It had a great cover, an interesting premise, and blurbs by several authors that I idolized and trusted. If they were endorsing it, it should have been amazing.

It is currently at the head of my short list for "worst book I read in 2012." I want those hours of my life back.

It wasn't offensive; it didn't call me names or slap my hands or steal my shit. It wasn't poorly written, although it had some pacing issues; the words were in the right order and generally spelled correctly. I can't in all good conscience call it a bad book. But I hated it. Absolutely, empirically, and with very few caveats. It was not my cup of tea. It wasn't even in my cup of tea's time zone. So why did I pick it up?

The blurbs. They made me think this book and I would get along, thus projecting one of the Geek Fallacies onto an innocent piece of prose. Friendship is not transitive, and neither is readability.

This is the dark side of blurbs: this is why authors sometimes have to say "no," even if they like another author's work. Because when I put my name on the cover of a book, I am saying "I like this, and if you like the things I like, you will like it, too." But what happens when you don't? Suddenly everything else I like is questionable. What if Diet Dr Pepper, Monster High dolls, and carnage are all waiting to betray you, too? Where is the line?

We have to be careful. We are trading on your faith, and our reputations.

Have you ever read a book based on the blurbs, only to find your faith in the authors who provided them somewhat shaken? Not your faith in the author who wrote the book—presumably, if you bought it based on blurbs, you didn't have any—but your faith in the blurbers?

(*No, I will not name the book. Why? Well, one, I am not in the business of bad book reviews, unless it's a non-fiction book riddled with factual errors. Other people obviously enjoyed this book, otherwise the blurbs wouldn't have been there in the first place. Your mileage may vary, and all. And two, as an author, I wouldn't want to find someone ranting about one of my books like this. So since the book didn't murder my puppies, I will not name it.)

Comments

[foz meadows (from livejournal.com)]

Honestly, no, because I don't expect perfect overlap between my tastes and those of any other person. Which seems to be what you're arguing for, somehow: that any instance in which Author Y blurbs a book that Fan X doesn't like can only be the result of Author Y having compromised their blurbing principles rather than Fan X simply having non-identical tastes. The friends with whom I have the strongest, most passionate agreement about the stories we love are also the friends with whom I have the most passionate disagreements. Different people can love the same thing in different ways, for different reasons, and to different degrees. So, yeah, if I were to see a book blurbed by (for instance) you, Holly Black and Nick Harkaway, I would buy the hell out of it - but if I didn't like it, I wouldn't think any of you had betrayed me; I'd just think that the three of you had found a common point of interest that I didn't happen to share. Which happens!

The only exception here is if a book blurbed by an author I respected was actually terribly written - like, empirically terribly, containing themes I knew (or thought I knew) that the blurber found offensive, in a way that made me wonder if they'd even actually read it. That might give me pause for thought. But that's not what you're describing, and it's not something I've ever encountered. Though on the reverse, I have ignored blurbs from authors I dislike or am ambivalent towards when choosing books that other people have suggested: I kept away from The Hunger Games for ages because Stephenie Meyer had blurbed it, for instance, and only gave it a shot because Faith Erin Hicks said how awesome it was.

Anyway! :)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I'm not arguing for perfect overlap: in this case, there were FOUR blurbs by people I normally trust implicitly, all implying that the book was the second coming. And that kind of layering is what it takes to get me to pick something up purely on basis of blurbs. I found it troublesome and weird; hence my posting.