Remember #RRTheater? It was a thing Jane Litte from Dear Author used to do every Friday, where she'd read a free eBook and tweet about it, then everyone participating in the hashtag would make fun of it. Naturally someone got offended at some point and she had to stop (I'm surprised it took people as long as it did, honestly), but before that happened, it was really fun and we actually enjoyed a lot of the books!
I've noticed people tend to get huffy when others (me) make fun of books. Huffy like a big man with a walrus moustache. But just because I make fun of a book doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it! I make fun of Twilight all the time and I quite enjoy those novels.
Here's the thing, at least ninety per cent of anything anyone reads is utter crap. But, as Steven Lloyd Wilson says in his epic rant against twisty-panted snobs who hate genre fiction, "Pick Your Poison: Sturgeon's Law and Why We Love Bad Fiction," it's the utter crap you enjoy that really defines your reading tastes. Anyone can like Pride & Prejudice; that doesn't make you a hopeless romantic. Going through hundreds of romances a year in search of the most sigh-worthy story, on other hand... now that's connoisseurship.
But just because you enjoy it doesn't mean you also, objectively, are not aware of its flaws. So yes, if a book asks to be mocked, I will oblige. Am I also making fun of myself a little for enjoying such ridiculous books? Perhaps. But that's my prerogative. I have never and will never claim that the books I like are actually good, just that I had fun reading them, and sometimes that involves making fun OF them.
Have you read a book recently you enjoyed making fun of?
