Shame On You

Recent events on Twitter have prompted me write this post. I debated writing it because I'm sure I'm going to offend many a people with my thoughts on this but, honestly, I couldn't give any fewer fucks. Good or bad I have a disease that makes me exhibit symptoms of calling people out on their bad behavior and this is a flare up. What bad behavior am I speaking of? Book shaming. The Twitter world has recently had me having more than my fair share of cringing, eye-rolling, and outright bursts of rage. If you are not familiar with the term, book shaming is making somebody feel stupid or judging somebody based on what books they choose to read.

A few weeks ago I saw some distressing tweets shaming people for their reasons for reading. Acca-excuse me? No, seriously. There was a discussion I saw that basically shamed people for reading and enjoying books based solely on the romance/relationships in the book. Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck is it to anybody the reasons why people read or love a certain book. If you wanna read solely for the romance, you rock on. If you only want to read non-fiction historical books, do your thing. I cannot even tell you the red I saw when seeing tweets about this because how dare anybody try to put another person down for their reasons for reading. It's rude, classless, and a shitty thing to do to somebody.

You don't have to defend your reasons for reading. Just because you "only" read books for an inspirational hero or the themes discussed doesn't make you a more profound reader than somebody who only reads romance novels. Do you think those heroic characters you love so much would be trying to put other people down? Hell. To. The. No. They defend the weak and stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves. They're not kicking a man when he's down and trying to prove how much stronger or better he is than the other person.

As bloggers, we should be the most open-minded people in the book world because of all the different types of readers we come across. There are dozens upon dozens of different genres and we all love books for different reasons and we all read for different reasons. Be it inspiration, motivation, romance, horror, sexy times, historical fact, it doesn't matter! Read what you want, when you want, make no excuses, and give zero fucks. 

If you're offended by my post, I'm not going to apologize. This is my corner of the internet and this is a place for me to vent and air my grievances and just maybe find somebody who feels the same way as me. And to be honest? If you're mad at my thoughts and opinions it's probably because you're guilty of some of the behavior I have highlighted. As I said above, we need to be supporting each other and not trying to tear one another down. We are all here for the same reason--to read books and enjoy them. Those heroines you claim to love and admire so much would not be acting like this. Be the hero of the story and not the bully because I'm not sure if you've read the end of this book...but the bully never wins.