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This Weeks Topic: Bookish Shame
Ok, I’m going to just say it: shaming people based on the books they read is a stupid thing to do, and if you do it, I think you’re stupid.
There. It’s been said.
Book shaming seems to be most common with YA books. If you read YA, you’re considered ‘unintelligent’, because the theory seems to be that if it was written for teenagers, it’s automatically going to be poorly written.
That’s a stupid theory.
It’s also considered ‘shameful’ for adults to read ‘kids’ books…that’s why ‘adult editions’ of books exist (eg/Harry Potter).
Again, that’s a stupid idea.
I read YA (if you haven’t figured that out yet). I love YA. My Sister loves YA (because I read books and then throw them at her and then she reads them). My Mum loves YA (when she’s looking for a new book to read, she comes to me for recs, and searches my bookshelf).
Does this mean that I’m uninformed and unintelligent? Does this mean that I’m incapable of higher reasoning?
No.
One time I told someone that I enjoyed Twilight. Their opinion of me immediately dropped (keep in mind that I mentioned it while we were trying to recruit people to come play Quidditch with us…), and their main argument against it was that there was no ‘enlightenment of wisdom’ or something while reading it…
Seriously?
I don’t read books to achieve ‘greater wisdom’; I read books for the same reason I watch TV, the same reason I watch movies:
They are entertaining. It’s as simple as that. And everyone gets entertained by different things.
My Dad reads non-fiction books about cars. I don’t judge him.
I also have no idea what’s so interesting about how cars work, but he likes it, so whatever.
He has no idea what’s so exciting about the books that I read, even though I’ve explained it to him, many, many times. But I like it, so whatever.
I just don’t get why we (and by we, I mean humans in general) feel this compelling need to judge people who have opinions different to ourselves.
Anyway, that’s my opinion. What do you think?
The Magical Adventures of Cassie the Weird 
Haha, I love your post 🙂 Greater wisdom, huh? Well, you certainly won’t find that in Twilight but I seriously doubt that the book was written with the intent of spreading it. I binge-read all four books in under a week, I think (I was a bit late to the party), and I felt the need to hide this from my friends … which is rather sad, don’t you think?
I wrote my thoughts about this here: http://ofdragonsandhearts.com/2014/07/thursday-thoughts-bookish-shame/
Brilliant answer and I completely agree! I don’t think anyone should judge a person for the kind of books they read, I don’t. I don’t read or enjoy erotica, but I don’t then go and judge others who do. Everyone has different tastes and we all like different things, it would be a really boring world if we didn’t! Great answer, here’s mine.
Ugh. My dislike for Twilight isn’t about “enlightenment” or whatever — sometimes books are just there for fun, sometimes they have things that not every reader will see. I hate people shaming people for reading books: reading anything at all is good!
My thoughts. (Warning: I kinda diss Twilight a little; in case that annoys you like it does my ex-flatmate!)