Apparently it’s considered unprofessional
How to react when your book is greeted with harsh reviews:
It’s unprofessional to write a review saying Laurie Penny wrote a bad book? I did not know that.
Tip Jar
How to react when your book is greeted with harsh reviews:
It’s unprofessional to write a review saying Laurie Penny wrote a bad book? I did not know that.
Isn’t that what her book is about? (Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book.) If so, it would make sense that the reviewers would focus on that.
Well, of course it is because Laurie Penny would never write a bad book, so therefore it’s all those horrible people being unprofessional. And vicious. Shameful!
I quite enjoyed this recent review.
https://www.counterfire.org/articles/book-reviews/22990-sexual-revolution-modern-fascism-and-the-feminist-fightback-book-review
When even the Revolutionary Socialists think you’ve done a bad job…
“It is unprofessional and evil to disagree with me” – Not just Laurie Penny, but TRAs in general. They’re the experts who have formed the correct opinions to maximise the health of trans people donchaknow, which means all disagreement is harmful.
@Rob, #2
Interesting review, NONE of which was a personal attack. No hatefulness, no viciousness, nothing about the author’s sexuality, or any of that.
“you can track the crisis of democracy against the crisis of white masculinity”
“white masculinity” created democracy (due to various accidents of history, not through any particular virtue of white men)… so…
I don’t know what the fuss is about, all the self reviews of her book were glowing. I hope she writes a book about the transphobe and faux-liberal conspiracy, that would surely be a bestseller. :P
Hasn’t Penny anyone close to her who will tell her NOT to reply to a bad review unless you can make the reviewer look like a fool eg you referred to the Baltic states, and they wrote the Balkans.
Her book got a lot of attention and reviews in the serious media, which is more than most books get, and was reviewed by serious and respected writers like Suzanne Moore, Rachael Cook and Sarah Ditum. That they panned it isn’t evidence of a plot by nefarious bigots. It’s more likely that her book is bad. However her howls of injury remind me of a satire by Max Beerbohm (alas, cannot find it) on Marie Corelli , who was a huge best seller in her day and done over by the critics, which she ascribed to jealous, bribery and general bad faith.
Note that those on her twitter feed who support her are just saying, poor darling, we love you etc rather than giving a good reason to admire her book.
@Rob – I was interested to read that article. The writer is saying in Marxist what others were saying in Feminist – that this book is more self-help and posturing rather than analysis. Also, she ends with this paragraph.
” Every generation of feminists needs their entry-level texts, and if you have never seen an account of how anti-abortion laws are bad, or right-wing movements are often misogynist, or an argument that you don’t have to put up with your boyfriend treating you like a sex slave or his mother, some of this will be worth reading. Penny can certainly write. It is just a pity that in this latest book, there is so little evidence of Penny’s undoubted ability also to think.”
That seems fair to me – on her day she can write, and if she hadn’t set herself up as a political and cultural analyst and activist and had found another niche she could have found a respectable writing career.
I was struck by “coordinated”.
Sorry, Laurie: they were just independent reviews of your book by independent critics independently recognising that your book is terrible. It’s quite telling that you think women without custom pronouns are incapable of independent thought, though, especially when you yourself show little sign of it.
It’s always handy, isn’t it, the ‘conspiracy’ charge? Fling enough of that mud around and you don’t have to defend your own words. Even in cases where even your supporters can see that the critics were right, you can just point at the critics’ supposed motivations (and shadowy far-right funding!) and your friends can safely go back to accepting whatever you’ve written without a moment’s thought, hooray!
See also “placed prominently in a number of major broadsheets”. You mean… those broadsheets commissioned reviews of your book and published them even though they weren’t glowing? How unethical!
Penny now claims to be suffering from CPTSD because of a few bad reviews. I can’t judge the state of her mental health or the impact these reviews might have had on it, but I cannot buy this story. If for no other reason than she got better after a few days!
I’m livid. It’s a perfect example of the sort of emotional blackmail Penny is becoming famous for and which the TA movement wields so relentlessly and – all too often – successfully. It’s not at all surprising that Penny would use a horrible, life-limiting condition suffered by so many women, so often at the hands of abusive men, to peddle a few more copies of her books.
Responding to reviews is unprofessional but weaponsing and trivialising CPTSD is not?
I’m almost tempted to read the damn book now, just to enrage myself even more. I’m sure I can find a copy if I look in enough skips.
I too was struck by “coordinated” and “placed in” – what completely idiotic things to say, especially for someone who writes for the Guardian and similar herself. She must know that’s nonsense, but apparently her love of self caused her to forget what she knows.
[…] Apparently it’s considered unprofessional […]
Lasat wrote:
I know I need to, but I hate to exercise. This, however, might be the kind of routine that actually motivates me to get my arms moving & my heart pumping. Thanks for the dandy suggestion!
I think I’ll have to wait to read the book. I woke up this morning with my knee inflamed and swollen, and it will be difficult for me to stomp on, jump on, or otherwise mutilate books with my feet until it’s resolved. But by then, I’ll probably need exercise, since I am not capable of exercising at the moment.
Of course it’s unprofessional to respond to bad reviews. Always has been. Doesn’t anyone remember Anne Rice’s “You’re interrogating the text from the wrong perspective”?
https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/1500545570980642819
“Suddenly I was: having rolling panic attacks, bone-tired, confused and constantly cold in a way I’ve only experienced before in the immediacy of deep grief. Thought I had COVID. Nope, just CPTSD. I’m truly, honestly much better now- but it was honestly scary for a few days.”
As for me, I find it quite reasonable for someone who has not followed Penny Red to know her full history to think that she is implying that the negative reviewed caused her CPTSD.
I suppose if someone says their mental health is fragile anyone who questions this is an insensitive beast – like if your mental health is so fragile why do you risk writing books which might get bad reviews? Surely you should be protecting yourself from such stressful situations.
I do find Penny’s wailing about how she is suffering especially infuriating at the present crisis i.e. with a serious war in Europe with horrible suffering and injustice, and with the devastation of Europe on the cards. I won’t say I can’t think of anything else, but everything that I’m usually preoccupied with seems a little at a distance, including the campaign I’m involved in, and other campaigners introduce their materials with apologetics – yes, the local elections do seem unimportant at the present time, but they are happening etc.
She poured her heart and brain into the book.
Unfortunately, that didn’t add up to much.
I very much liked JK Rowling’s response:
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1500887409977929729?s=20&t=fybKSQooEb_CWiw4hCSWWw
I loved her response. Loved loved loved it.