Is it okay to criticize books?

~ Veselin

I awarded 3* to Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker with a few harsh sentences and a couple of weeks later, it was announced he’ll visit Bulgaria. He did and I met him. Felt so embarrassed. But why was that?

When it comes to criticism, Dale Carnegie has been my ultimate guide. He wrote:

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.

Dale Carnegie

I just completed book 11 of Stephanie Plum’s series. I liked it but let’s assume I didn’t. I didn’t like that Stephanie ate so many donuts and faced no consequences. Most of us would burn in hell if we ate half of that. So, we have a disagreement on the donuts problem. What do I do? May I go to Goodreads for a soul-crushing review, and award 1*?

Dale Carnegie says criticism does not work, it’s always bad, and he’s also attributed to a saying that constructive criticism doesn’t work either. Are there any exceptions? Dale Carnegie himself criticizes the people who criticize by saying they are fools, so at least one exception must exist.

The only somewhat working system I’ve seen so far is to criticize actions and not the people who do the actions. When I yell at my kids, I yell things like “Fighting with each other is bad” and I don’t yell “You are bad”. When reasoning is provided, it should be specific and with no generalizations. “This particular thing is bad because of this specific reason”. “Don’t punch your brother, he’ll feel bad and cry and I’ll take your phone” as opposed to “Stop you, idiot”, even though the second feels so much more rewarding.

So, in the context of Stephanie Plum , I said this: “I didn’t like that Stephanie ate so many donuts and faced no consequences. Most of us would burn in hell if we ate half of that.” – this criticizes Stephanie and generalizes because she doesn’t always eat vast amounts of donuts, only when her hair is messed up or her car explodes. Most people probably don’t have sugar issues, and I can’t speak for most people anyway – I can only speak for myself. I should’ve said something like “Reading about Stephanie eating 7 pieces of cake in one go made me feel nauseous. Cakes and donuts in such amounts can make her ill. I wish she had another way of dealing with the burnt and exploding cars.”

Published by Veselin

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10 thoughts on “Is it okay to criticize books?”

  1. Enjoyed this. I’ve become less critical as I’ve gotten older but sometimes I wonder about how many of us lie if someone asks about their work and we dont tell them when it’s poorly written.

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    1. There’s the book Radical Candor that says that if you want to say something, you should not say something else that contradicts with it. It’s better to not be perfect with what you say, as long as it’s clear, true, and timely. A decade ago, I thought you can get around providing direct critical feedback by saying things that are close but not exact and my boss quickly straightened me up.

      So I’m now more focused on trying to criticize actions rather than people and filter out the natural exaggerations that our brains tend to produce.

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    1. Yes but it spreads bad vibes and makes the world a worse place. Nobody likes to be criticized. Book authors are humans too. There aren’t that many book bloggers, criticize a contemporary author and there’s a high chance the author will read it.

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      1. Yeah, I understand. Criticism is not always fun 😂. I get it a lot, not for my writing, but for how I act as a person, but I’m working on all of it to better myself.

        Constructive criticism can be a good thing, though. It makes people get better at what they’re doing. I think it all depends on HOW you do it…

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