BookWenches

Posted by Bobby

The other evening, my eighteen year old son and I sat watching a movie called "Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny". OK, he was watching...I was drinking a glass of wine and trying to avoid looking at the screen. (If you haven't seen this movie, don't. It's definitely teen-fodder and makes no sense at all). Since I am rarely without my Sony Reader, and it drives him crazy that I'd read and not watch the movie instead, the subject of my book reviews came up.

Overall, he's a really sweet kid and quite supportive of my little habit and has even donated his graphic arts skills to us. But he has a bug up his butt about the fact that we don't post negative reviews. No matter how many times I explain to him that we don't want to waste our efforts on negative reviews and choose to simply not review something we don't like, he refuses to see it my way.

Him: "People deserve to know if a book isn't good."

Me: "But that's no fun. Besides, we read too damned many books to waste our time trashing something we don't like. Would rather tell folks what we DO like."

Him: "You're doing your visitors a disservice."

While I can see where he is coming from, the fact remains that I'd rather tell y'all about the books I like than trash talk the bad ones. Heck, it's painful enough to toss away a book half-read that probably cost me $7 or so. I don't want to have to dwell on my phenominal waste of money. Hopefully folks won't think that we're doing them a disservice but will instead appreciate the recommendations; that's really what we designed this site for, anyway.

So the boy and I agree to disagree. And honestly? I think that he enjoys having something to criticize me about. I guess it makes up for the years I nagged him about homework!