I Used To Work For A Trade Book Reviewer Where I Got Payed To Review People's Books, And One Of The Rules

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got payed to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?

in all seriousness, a few resources i think are helpful with regards to understanding just how thoroughly henry kissinger screwed the world over:

kissinger by behind the bastards. this is a 6 part series done by the podcast behind the bastards, with the hosts of the dollop on as guests. it's super funny and a very accessible foothold into understanding the scope of kissinger's vast career.

kissinger's shadow by greg grandin. this book provides an in-depth analysis of kissinger's tenure in the white house, covering both how he got into office, the changes he made in office, the policies he put forth, and their repercussions on the world.

the trial of henry kissinger by christopher hitchins. while grandin's book focuses less on the specificities of kissinger's crimes, hitchins has no such qualms and details each of them in depth.

i truly think understanding kissinger, the way he thought, and the things that he did, are all indispensable when it comes to understanding the modern political climate and how foreign policy works in america and therefore, by necessity, in the world at large. the sheer amount of damage he was responsible for should never be underestimated.

Bake at 350: Spooky S'mores Bars