99% of the reason I have a book blog is to share my thoughts on books with the rest of the world. I share the awesome, the not-so-awesome, and the downright painful, but almost always these thoughts are shared somewhat anonymously. Few of my readers know who I am outside of the blog, and rarely do I hear back from someone who has picked up a book based explicitly on my recommendation.
My recommendations don't get shared in real life too often as most of my real-life acquaintances aren't big YA readers (and if they are, they're probably already following the blog!). But last weekend while visiting family for a wedding, I got to impart some of my wisdom to people in real life, namely my dad. He was talking about some baseball stuff - I forget what exactly at this point - and I said he needed to read Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz. Not only was it one of my favorite books of the year, but I figured as a bit of a baseball history fan, he'd really get a kick out of watching the game evolve. Plus my dad isn't a huge reader, so I thought a series of short stories would go over well.
As we were wasting time waiting to drop me off at the bus stop after the wedding, my parents and I stopped at a Barnes & Noble, where Dad asked me to find Brooklyn Nine for him. He started reading it almost immediately (it was that or take a nap while Mom and I shopped for clothes - everyone once in awhile I go and do something girly like that!) and called me the other day to say he'd finished the book and he really did like it - though I think what he liked best of all was that I'd thought of him after reading it (parents can get sappy about that sort of thing).
So I wanted to throw this out to my blog readers - anyone else have some book sharing success stories? A time when someone came back to you after hearing your recommendation and said "Wow, you were right! Thanks!"?
4 comments:
My mom doesn't really listen when I make book suggestions to her, or even read them when I drop off books for her! We tend to agree on some books, like how the Twilight series was terrible, though she made it all the way to the fourth book before throwing in the towel. We also disagree on some books - one her favorite books in the Da Vinci Code, which was a really hard book for me to get through. I think, more than anything, our tastes are just too different. She prefers fiction mystery (preferably with a historical conspiracy twist), while I love- well, you know what I love. ;)
Apparently my grandmother read and LOVED Twilight. She mentioned it to my mom, who said she was avoiding it on my recommendation, and laid out all of the terrible things I'd told her. Then my grandmother decided she couldn't like them anymore, because while as an adult the negative bits didn't affect her, she didn't want to think she was supporting something that could be damaging to teen girls. So...there's an anti-rec for you.
I think that's one of the biggest draws (and problems) with Twilight, is the Twimoms who don't see any problem with the themes in the book and desperately want to have something in common with their daughters at a time when it feels like their relationship is falling apart. Even my mom liked them until the plot and the writing started to fall apart and she reached a point where she didn't understand why her friends were so adamantly in love with the books. We had a handful of discussions about the themes in the book, but she didn't really see why I had a problem with most of them.
I absolutely love "The Road" and after convincing my boyfriend to read it too, it's now one of our favorites. I knew he would like it though, so it wasn't a huge surprise :)
I like this post -- I could have written the first couple paragraphs myself. It's a weird balance between trying to promote your blog/meet other bloggers with the same interests and not telling the whole world everything about yourself. I like to think I still have some privacy left in the age of the internet.
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