I was directed to a couple of articles by PublishersWkly on Twitter. Very interesting articles and I feel it important enough to share them with you and give you my thoughts. The first article is Faking Nice in the Blogosphere: Women and Book Reviews by Sarah McCarry, I felt this was a fairly straightforward rant and led quite nicely into the second article, Faking It by Liz B. Liz takes McCarry’s article to pieces and examines it in detail, making us understand that this isn’t a ‘girls club’ and we, as book bloggers, don’t have to say a book is good just because the author is female and that we shouldn’t take their race or colour into account when writing a review. Liz is fairly scathing about McCarry’s article and has linked to other articles on the same topic.
This is actually a fairly important issue. It’s a bit like the ‘boys club’ where the boys get together, have good times and nothing is said to the wives about what they’ve done. It’s been done throughout the centuries in so many different cultures and in so many different ways and you’d really need an historian to do the topic justice. I don’t do that sort of thing. I try to tell it as I see it. I don’t make excuses for race, colour, creed or sex. I don’t care if they black, white or pink with purple spots, male, female or a mixture of both, if I think they’ve created a bad book then I’ll say that. If I think their book is the best in the world then I’ll say that too. I do try not to say anything derogatory about the author even if I know them as I’m focussing on the book and not the author. I’m rather upset that I’ve been lumped into a category of book bloggers who say nice things about a book for the sole reason that it was written by a women. I know some women writers who really shouldn’t give up their day jobs, I just haven’t reviewed their books on here yet. I felt quite liberated by Liz’s article and also as if she’s been reading my blog and giving me support. I’m prepared to bet she’s never heard of me, but that’s just how I feel.
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