One of my pet peeves is people who read my shifter book, Chuffed, and compare it to the kind of books I talked about in my blog post at Sue's blog. Or when they just don't seem to read the book carefully or slowly enough and then complain about things they missed because they really didn't see them, I guess?
For example, I've had one or two complaints about the shifters in Chuffed going to have their blood tested to be able to bareback. The complaint is that they don't go to the hospital for other reasons, but they do for this? Like it's an OUTRAGE for this to happen. My question to these readers is, where in the book does it say they can't go to a hospital/clinic to have their blood drawn? It's made very clear--if you read the book, that is--that they won't go to a hospital when they're in serious pain because that causes an involuntary shift and they need to stay hidden from the human eyes. Getting your blood drawn wouldn't cause this...?
Or maybe they think that there's something in the blood that would expose the shifters somehow? This is not even talked about in the book, but now that I'm talking about it here, no. There's not a thing in their blood that someone could see and think odd while taking a standard STD-test.
Another thing that comes to mind is about Thank My Lucky Scars, my novella about a bike messenger and a porn star who fall in love. The complaint about this story seems to be that it's ridiculous/stupid/pretentious/hypocritical/whatever that while the guys don't have sex, the porn star goes and has sex on the job.
Now, I don't understand this at all. Honestly. Let's say you're in a tentative relationship with someone who doesn't drink wine. Your job, however, is wine tasting. That's all you do all day every day, taste wines. Because your romantic interest doesn't drink wine, do you stop doing your job?
I know it's not the same, sex and wine are hardly the same (though some say both can be near religious experiences...). My point here is that IT IS A JOB. Do you stop doing your job for your lover who, by the way, understands the nature of your job completely?
Or maybe these people who complain about this aspect of the story don't understand porn? Don't approve of it? Or just find porn dirty and disgusting, unless they're watching it when it's SUPER HOT. But god damn it if those guys have a real life outside their jobs! That's just DISGUSTING!
Okay. I think I'm done ranting now. ^^
There are several other things I don't understand about some reviews or random comments I see about some of my stories, but then again, that won't prevent me from writing other things people won't approve of or understand. In some ways, writing a completely understandable book and trying to see how many people don't actually care to read it carefully enough is... fun. In some masoctistic way, at least.
Another pet peeve? When people round down their .5 ratings on Goodreads. That's just mean, really. But that's a whole other rant for some other time.
(PS. There will be a contest at some point soon, you can win a paperback of Technically Dead and whatnot... Keep your eye on this blog and my Facebook and Twitter too. Just remember I'm usually not that SFW with my Twitter links... ;))
