Bookish Rethinks is a discussion that I should probably upload to my BookTube channel. I may upload it at some point because I’m curious about other peoples thoughts on the subject.
I’ve been thinking about the books I’ve read over the past year and my opinions on them. When I first started BookTube, or Blogging in general, I didn’t review every book I’d read. However, one book I did review was ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ by Sarah J. Maas.
I re-read that review this evening and realised that it’s very wishy-washy nice. A lot nicer than my opinions on it today, a few months on. I can’t help but wonder, why is that? Is it because I genuinely enjoyed it overall? I must have, even though I do note a few of the issues I have with it. However, there are also moments I didn’t mention including Tamlin with ‘that scene’ which did bother me, and yet I didn’t note it. Which is strange because, I know that if that happened to a friend (just as an example), I wouldn’t stand for it. I didn’t even mention Lucien, a character which I genuinely enjoyed.
Perhaps, as it was my first review since joining BookTube, that’s my inexperience showing. (Heck, I’m still inexperienced!). But why, when finishing the book, did I leave feeling much more positive than looking back a few months later.
Am I focussing too much on the negatives? Or are these my real feelings towards it, now that I’m not so emotionally invested after just finishing the novel?
I want to put it out there that I don’t mean to come out of nowhere and attack this book, in a sense. That wouldn’t be fair however, I thought it was interesting how my thoughts and feelings changed after I stepped back for a moment and looked at it objectively.
In my review I said that I will definitely read the sequel because I want to know how Rhysand redeems himself, but also that I don’t want to because I didn’t hate how the book ended – those are my only feelings which have stayed the same. I own the sequel, but at this point if I read on it’d be for Lucien. Who knows, maybe in a few months I’ll have changed my mind again. Having said that I currently feel pretty strongly about the issues presented.
I’d really like to get a discussion going here. Not of ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ necessarily, that’s just my example. my question is:
Is there a book you’ve read where at first you felt positive and then, upon reflection, feel those initial reactions shift?
or even
Is there a book you didn’t enjoy however, again upon reflection, now look at it in a different light and absolutely love it?
