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JohnTaylorson OP t1_jckb1n0 wrote

Reply to comment by CrazyCatLady108 in "You don’t like it because you don’t get it, you don’t get it because you’re not ___________" by JohnTaylorson

I've read my nephew's YA books of varying degrees of quality and I've read childrens books to my daughter that range wildly in standard. I'm in the target audience for neither bracket, but if the writing is sub-par/lazy and the research it slipshod, criticisms of these things shouldn't be invalidated because I'm not the key demographic.

I agree there should be some reference to the target audience when it comes to subject and themes- for example I can't dismiss a book about, say, social media influencers as being absolute rubbish as it must appeal to someone (and that may not be me)- but if said book is poorly written, has a poor grasp of structure, vocabulary, nuance, relies on telling, rather than showing etc my criticisms would be absolutely valid and shouldn't be dismissed just because it wasn't written for someone like me.

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CrazyCatLady108 t1_jcl6ej6 wrote

you are conflating two things. a book being not well written and how much someone enjoyed the book are separate things.

let me use food to demonstrate. say you really like strawberries. your mother makes you a strawberry cake. it is raw in the middle and burnt on the edges, but your mom made it and you love strawberries, so you eat it and you like it. someone comes by and says "that cake has poor grasp of structure and lacks the nuance to be called cake" and you tell them "shut up, i like it. i am the target audience."

back to books. people can have a reason to like something that is, in your opinion, poorly written because it has something else that makes them enjoy it. and your insistence on something being poorly written is not concrete objective criticism. sure, sometimes the steak is raw but some people prefer it that way. (mixing up my food metaphors here)

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JohnTaylorson OP t1_jclju9g wrote

And that was my point in the original post: it's not necessarily about liking or disliking a book, rather having a legitimate criticism of it (ie how competently it's written) invalidated because the subject matter may not be something that directly affected you, as a reader, in real life.

If we're going down food metaphors it's like ordering coq au vin in a restaurant, finding the chicken undercooked and badly prepared and being told 'You just don't like it because you're not French.' Maybe some people somewhere may like it that way- tastes are, after all subjective- but there's also a good chance the chef is shit and your legitimate critisisms shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because you don't fall into a particular demographic.

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CrazyCatLady108 t1_jclrg34 wrote

but your criticism that something is poorly written is not an objective fact.

raw chicken is consumed in some cultures, you can get raw chicken sushi in Japan. so yes if the coq au vin was from a fusion restaurant referencing a style of cooking from a culture you are not familiar with, you are not the target demographic and there is nothing wrong with your dish. similarly, if you find a bug in your food it might be because the restaurant is incorporating novel sources of protein.

back to my original comment. you might think the book sucks because you do not have the background knowledge needing to understand what the author is referencing. or the author could legitimately suck. barring some extreme cases, your opinion that something is terrible is not any more correct than another's opinion that something is awesome. that's how opinions work.

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JohnTaylorson OP t1_jclwxf9 wrote

I'm not saying it's an objective fact. I never once did. I understand how opinions work.

Nor am I saying that my opinions should be taken as the gospel truth. Often I have a shit take. I'm sure you have the occasional shit take. Everyone can have a shit take.

I'm saying my SUBJECTIVE opinions on a book I've read - anyone's subjective opinions for that matter - shouldn't be automatically and blindly invalided because the person offering it doesn't belong to a particular demographic.

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CrazyCatLady108 t1_jcm0x7v wrote

>blindly invalided because the person offering it doesn't belong to a particular demographic.

and i never said they should be. my point is that there may be less weight to your opinion than you want simply because you are not familiar with the subject matter. so your opinion being invalidated could be because it is, in this case, a Shit Take and not a subjective opinion.

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JohnTaylorson OP t1_jcmb1tx wrote

>and i never said they should be

Well, that was my original point, so I guess that's that.

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