Lamoragate

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is a highly hyped and critically praised fantasy novel, which I own but haven't yet read more than about 100 pages of (got distracted; I'll start over when I get back to it in my queue) but it recently came to my attention that it's undergone a bit of a controversy, known to some (or at least to one guy) as Lamoragate.

Yeah, see, apparently it got one negative review, and in the course of writing the review, the reviewer made an obviously hyperbolic statement about bribes changing hands to get mediocre books a ton of hype.

And, in an episode that says more about the entitlement felt by a ridiculous people on the internet, all kinds of people were extremely offended by that. Huh? Did anyone seriously think that was serious? I'm struggling to imagine how anyone's capable of percieving that as inappropriate, and coming up blank.

Tastes differ. A reviewer's job is two-fold; one is to describe what's being reviewed so you can make a determination on whether or not you think you'll enjoy it, but the other is to entertain the readers. A bit of exaggeration for comic effect isn't something that anyone should be offended by. The author doesn't particularly seem to be offended (although after going to great pains to say that he's not offended, he does call it rude), the editor who approved the review didn't think twice about it... and yet, all kinds of Joe Blow people (presumably uber-fans of the book itself) were ready to tar and feather this poor reviewer just because she said she didn't like the book, and in fact, found all the hype about it be quite mysterious in origin.

In case you're wondering, yeah---I have little patience for the overly sensitive, and those who feel entitled to some kind of treatment.