Snap Black-and-White Judgments (Book: I Love Brock Turner)

[Scott]

Quite a few people have made a snap black-and-white judgment without reading my new free booklet and rated it 1 star without downloading and without reading it. They came up with their own tl;dr belief that the book supports rape, and they reacted of course negatively and destructively to that. This misunderstanding and tl;dr-attitude is totally understandable. We don't need to be mad at those people at all. Roles reversed, I could have made the same mistake, and in other situations I regularly do make that kind of mistake. That itself is pretty much what the book is about.

Luckily, enough people have read the booklet that the overall rating is still positive. More importantly, from people who actually read it, I've been so shocked at how overwhelmingly and nearly unanimously positive the response has been.

I expected quite a number of people to hate the book, but I thought they would hate it after reading it. So it is actually a shock that people who read it like it so much. I was trying to be honest, not popular. I almost didn't release it at all because I thought so many people would hate it after reading it.

This has actually been a really inspiring discovery for me. To me it suggests we all agree a lot more than we realize. We think we disagree with others and that they have such awful or disgusting ideas. We think "how in the heck could they actually believe that?" But really usually we just misunderstand each other. If there's any real big fundamental problem there, I suspect it's merely that we aren't listening to each other enough.

What do you think?

Finally, needless to say, if you read the booklet and enjoyed it, please do leave a review to help balance the one's from those who judged it without reading it.

[gali]

It is sad that people judge without reading the book. I agree we aren't listening to each other enough. I liked it and posted a review on Amazon, Goodreads and here.

[Scott]

It is sad that people judge without reading the book. I agree we aren't listening to each other enough. I liked it and posted a review on Amazon, Goodreads and here.

Thank you much, @gali , for this and for always being so supportive.

[bookowlie]

Just curious, what makes you think the negative reviewers didn't read the book? Was that explicitly stated or are you just assuming they didn't read the book?

In general, I find Amazon reviews sketchy. Anyone can write a review and say anything they want, including people who either love or hate the author for any type of reason. For example, someone might write a book with information against Hillary Clinton and all of a sudden there will be hundreds of negative reviews on the first day of publication bashing the book. I am using this as an example because there was an article about this in the newspaper last year. The reviews were all traced to the same IP address in her campaign office.

A lot of reviews are subjective and can unfairly skew the average rating for a book. It goes both ways. I have read books where all the ratings were 4 and 5 stars and the book was not good at all. It made me think the reviews were posted by friends or relatives of the author. Even more ridiculous is when Goodreads will often have a review posted by the author. On the flip side, people who have an ax to grind about an author for personal reasons can easily post a negative review on Amazon, without regard for an objective opinion of the book.

[gali]

It is sad that people judge without reading the book. I agree we aren't listening to each other enough. I liked it and posted a review on Amazon, Goodreads and here.

Thank you much, @gali , for this and for always being so supportive.

You are most welcome.

[Dalvarion]

Since i am currently reading a book to review, it maybe a week or two more, due to some medical issues making it hard to pick up read or watch tv etc. but I will possibly no promises here take a shot at reading your book. i do try to be honest about what I am thinking about and how i can relate to the book etc. and all that. thanks to the support from Gali and others after a week or two i was reading my first book here which of course I chose something thats only about oh 1000 pages long lol.

With that said, I am guessing here the name of the book is (Book: I Love Brock Turner)?

[LarkSpur25]

I will be honest and admit that I was one of those people who made a snap judgement based on the title of the booklet. I refused to even open the cover and discover what may reside within its pages.

I dislike the title but I have decided to give the booklet a try and will leave my honest review.

[ShumylaM]

I would love to read it, can someone tell me where can I read it?

[gali]

I would love to read it, can someone tell me where can I read it?

Look for the book on Amazon.

[Scott]

Just curious, what makes you think the negative reviewers didn't read the book? Was that explicitly stated or are you just assuming they didn't read the book?

@bookowlie Good question! Namely, it is because they are not verified purchase reviews on a book that is free and only available through Amazon, and that combined with content which is in this cases usually just an explanation of why they don't want to download/read.

In general, I find Amazon reviews sketchy. Anyone can write a review and say anything they want, including people who either love or hate the author for any type of reason. For example, someone might write a book with information against Hillary Clinton and all of a sudden there will be hundreds of negative reviews on the first day of publication bashing the book. I am using this as an example because there was an article about this in the newspaper last year. The reviews were all traced to the same IP address in her campaign office.

A lot of reviews are subjective and can unfairly skew the average rating for a book. It goes both ways. I have read books where all the ratings were 4 and 5 stars and the book was not good at all. It made me think the reviews were posted by friends or relatives of the author. Even more ridiculous is when Goodreads will often have a review posted by the author. On the flip side, people who have an ax to grind about an author for personal reasons can easily post a negative review on Amazon, without regard for an objective opinion of the book.

All great points! I have topic about those general problems: Do You Trust Amazon Reviews?

[jcs]

I haven't read the book as of yet (and therefore can't speak to the relevancy or validity of these judgements), but I do have some experience with humans. I spent some time working as a behavioral health professional, and can affirm from anecdotal experience that vast quantities of disagreement stem from miscommunication. This observation is reinforced by training, studies, and the writings of those far more qualified than I re: psychology and/or neurology. I got into the field through sociology, myself. I don't know of a real solution to this problem, but it seems very probable that discussing it openly from a neutral stance is a good place to start. Unfortunately, it does require that all who participate make the same style of investment - and humans are notoriously prone to opining in place of critical thinking.

[Esies98]

Same here, the first time I saw I Love Brock Turner's cover my first though was to not read the book, but then I remembered a couple years ago when I read Animal Farm by George Orwell, and my brothers were like Why are you reading that? all the time but I didn't care because I was so delighted by the book that their critics couldn't harm me. Since then I've tried to never judge a book by the cover. Sadly you are gonna have to wait until I finish my current book (Dante, The Divine Comedy) to leave my review of your book.

[DeliriumReader]

I saw the title, Scott, and I thought, "Oh, Jesus, what have you done, Scott? Please, go in the direction I hope you're going," and you did. I was scared for you, though. When I shared it on Facebook, I automatically and preemptively went on the defense and stated my argument. I was prepared for the attack. It never happened. Everyone who read the book, loved it.

[mindyg123]

Here is a perfect example of judging a book by it's cover or in this case by it's title. People are so quick to snap to judgement without opening the book, it's not about loving Brock it's about how easy it is to hate instead of love.

[DarthMandy]

To be honest, I only got it because for every download, money went to sexual assault victims. I haven't read it yet and I may not; I don't really know. I read a review that described the book as "preachy" and summarized the message and I'm not really interested.
As a survivor of rape and abuse, both as a child and adult, I've heard it said quite a bit that "what you need to do" or "the only way to really heal" is to forgive your abusers and love your abusers and turn to religion, all of which registers as crap with me. I really don't like people telling me how I should feel about the kind of people who care more about getting off than about the lives of the people they're hurting. I was once asked by a family member about one abuser, "Why can't you just forgive and forget?" Sadly, a lot of survivors are told/asked things like that and later on, we can read a book that has a vaguely similar message and we feel that old pain all over again. It feels like people aren't bothering to understand our pain and realize that we are affected for decades, maybe our whole lives, and by loving/forgiving our attackers, people are saying we don't matter. "Yeah, I know he destroyed someone's life, but that doesn't really matter because he's human so I love him."
I think it's grossly unfair that people left negative reviews without even reading, especially since this shock title tactic is really common these days. I definitely think you're right about people not listening to each other. It's why xenophobia is still a thing, in my opinion. I also think that 'love the sinner' is a really popular message within religious communities so I'm not surprised so many people like the book.
Honestly, this may help someone. I hope it does. But it's not everyone's cup of tea and it's not even something everyone should read because in some cases, it may do more harm than good for a survivor who reads it.