>and i never said they should be

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

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.

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.

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.

Super crazy curious now. So this guy thought a perceived gender divide prevented to from 'getting' this classic Sci Fi book?

Aye, that's the size if it. Good intentions or not, at the end of the day, a shitty book is just a shitty book.

Oh man, now I'm super curious about what the book in question might be...?

That's a very good response, thank you. I get what you mean about if a book has resonated with a number of people it must be doing something right. I should have stressed- and might edit- in my original question is the importance of the fundamental writing itself- the structure, composition, language used, research of the subject matter etc rather than the plot itself. I suppose popularity itself if a win, if it gets people fired up about something.

That said, my comment regarding the greater importance of strong writing for books on 'worthy' subjects comes from a couple I've read that tackle tough, emotive, controversial subject matter, but are written so poorly and researched so badly all I can think is "these authors are charlatans who got cut a book deal purely because of the subject matter". To me this seems like the most shameless of scams and does not give the subject the justice it deserves.

I really don't think there's anything to it other than poor writing on Alderman's part. It's easier- and lazier- to leave something 'mysterious' than it is to make something genuinely ambiguous and open to a number reasonable explanations. Like the rest of the book, she seemed to make it up as she went so I never found anything intriguing or worth exploring about the voice in Amy(?)'s head.