Hi! I sent the TOWB ask and accidentally switched on anon, lol. Thank you for your reply! I will definitely read it! I try to be very critical about the media I interact with, but this situation seemed very messy. I spent close to 2 hours sifting through reviews on goodreads and then I searched the book on tumblr (which was a mistake) trying to find people who actually read it. I do not discount the reviews from black and Jewish readers that I did find, I just wanted to hear as many relevant opinions as I could before I just went ahead and read the book. Thank you again! Would it be alright if I reblogged your reply to my previous ask?
No worries!! Sorry if my reply seemed aggressive or anything, I'm just tired of people who clearly haven't read the book wrecking it as though it was something the head terf herself had written. It was a very messy situation and I think it was handled incredibly poorly by book twitter (which is why I avoid it).
I... also made the mistake of looking in tumblr search for anyone who had read it (what I saw there only irritated me more tbh) so yeah, it's hard to find legitimate reviews in some places where all the drama was just needlessly spread.
If you want to read the book but are still hesitant, I would recommend seeing if you can get it in a library or finding somewhere you can borrow it until you're sure you want it. I loved the book (I'm a sucker for a lot of YA fantasy books), but I know there were people who didn't enjoy it for genuine reasons like plot of characterisation, and I know I have books that I regret buying because I didn't enjoy them due to characterisation or plot. I will always rec a book that I love, but I also know that the cost of living crisis is real and not everyone can afford a £16 hardback randomly. If you want to straight up buy it though, great!
Also, sure! You can absolutely reblog my reply! If it gets more people to think critically instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to the name of a book that they saw reviews based off someone else's flawed review, then that is important.