Rashika, The Book Owl

So some of you might have heard what went down today on my review for Amulet of Elusion by Katie Lynn Johnson. I am just going to give a quick run down of how I feel about the whole situation.

Katie emailed me a while ago asking if I would review her book. Let's start with that. On my blog it clearly states that I am not accepting self-published books at the moment unless I contact you myself. She decided not to pay any heed to that and emailed me (she got the email from Tangled in Pages and the post was published on The Social Potato) anyway. I was slightly annoyed but the book intrigued me enough to let go of that and tell her I'd be willing to review it. Now, I made no promises to like it and like it I did not. What with the recent BBA occurrences, I was slightly worried about how she would take it so I decided not to link her to the review when I let her know I reviewed the book. Hell I even apologized for not liking it even though I had no obligation to do so. I understand that authors are human beings and have feelings and I am sure it sucks when people don't like your books. She was polite enough when she replied but then she somehow lost her shit and decided to attack a commenter, not me, A COMMENTER who basically expressed her opinions. Here is the original comment. 

There was nothing wrong with it but Katie was struck with the wise idea of singling Giselle out and replied with this: 

There are many things wrong with that statement never mind the fact that it was extremely childish. For starters I get the feeling she just discounted my opinion by saying that every other reviewer liked this book. Let's move on the other half though, the one where she basically acts like it was Giselle's loss. Xpresso Book Tours is a very successful business and there are waiting lists to get on a tour but for her to act so childish and immature is just ridiculous. And Giselle was commenting as a fellow blogger, not someone who runs a business. Also, what's wrong with Giselle forming an opinion based on my review? Hell if there are things that she clearly does not like that I said were in the book should it not be her right to avoid the book like the plague? Haven't we all done it? 

But this wasn't all. She decided to take this all a step further and talk about it on her blog (you know how the BBAs get all riled up and then whine about it to whoever will listen.. uh huh)

LOL. Open minded. LOL. HYPOCRITES. EVERYWHERE

But then she changed her mind. It was no longer unfortunate that I didn't like her book. I became a book basher and a mean human being 

Are reviewers not even safe commenting on their fellow reviewers reviews? Are we going to get attacked every where we turn? Is there no end to this bullshit?

I am just fucking pissed. I spend a while writing that review and I spend a shit load of time attempting to finish a book I was not enjoying. I do NOT have a lot of time on my hands. It's my senior year and I've got a fuck load of things to worry about. I have no obligations to like her fucking book and commenters have no obligations to go read it if they don't think they'll like it. She is supposed to be a professional (EVEN IF SHE IS SELF-PUBLISHED) and SHE SHOULD FUCKING ACT LIKE ONE but instead she choses to dig herself further into the hole of her own making. 

FURTHER EDIT

Faye brought this to my attention. In this post Katie goes on to discredit everything I've said.

I think it's suffice to say I am not going to be reviewing a self published book in a long long time. It's a pity because we all know that there are wonderful self-pubbed authors out there.