religionlies2u t1_j6muzs8 wrote
Just donate it to goodwill. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. You may not like it but clearly some publisher/editor thought it print worthy and perhaps others feel the same? Or just throw it out but do you think promoting his name and title in Bold on social media is the right way to go if you really wanted to get rid of it? Sounds more like virtue signaling to me.
mayor_of_funville t1_j6n1nnr wrote
> promoting his name and title in Bold on social media
The book is 30 years old and they made a movie out of it, I don't think some anon person mentioning the title is going to put it back on the best seller list. Also if anyone finds that book a treasure they need to seek professional help. 300 pages of detailed descriptions of torturing a young girl to death should not be treasured by anyone.
Moosemellow t1_j6o95wl wrote
It's okay that you didn't enjoy the book and wouldn't recommend it to people, but you're insulting other readers because you didn't like it. If you read the book, you know the book keeps most of the violence and torture off the page and leaves most of it up to the reader to fill in the blanks. You're being disinguous. It's not torture porn, because the book is not meant to be titillating. It's painful, it's heartbreaking, and the characters are morally reprehensible, but it's also (through the safety of fiction) exploring how people, especially children, are capable of heinous acts of cruelty and be disensitized to violence through their own environments or abuse. That was the actual crime that happened. The book fictionalized the crime, and it's actually way less cruel than the real events. By telling the story with the safety net of fiction, the author can be respectful to the victims without speaking for them, or the woman and children who committed the crimes. The book never intends to turn on the reader or excite them, and there are whole passages where the narrator grapples with how anyone could have that mindset. As for the narrator, it would be absolutely awful to read Meg's experiences from her perspective. As it's written, the book's major theme is violence and cruelty through complicity or inaction. By having the character be a side character, and outsider who becomes an insider to the story, the reader feels vulnerable, complicit, and unable to change the events, just like the narrator. So fuck you for assuming reading a specific book makes someone mentally ill or sadistic, and not intelligent or empathetic.
noahsame t1_j6n5491 wrote
This book may be horrific, but is based on real events. Read the story about Sylvia Likens and what happened to her, some parts are even worse in reality. And while I can't say that I enjoyed the book for obvious reasons, but it is very well-written.
mayor_of_funville t1_j6n7lx0 wrote
I saw this same reply you made below, and I am curious as to why you think it being based on real events makes it "better" in some way. This book could almost be redeemed if it was from Meg's perspective or at least had some chapters documenting with the author thinks is going through her mind. I agree it was well-written as it did exactly what the author set out to do which is terrify me. I think had there been a section at the end speaking about the actual events that happened and mentioned Sylvia's name, it could have been seen as a memorial to her, but without it the text is asking you to feel empathy for a mythical person.
noahsame t1_j6n9zpz wrote
This was my only reply in this post. As for your question, yes, I think it makes the book better because it adds an educational value as well. Of course, this is my own perspective and you may disagree, but reading about such cruelty that exists somewhere in the real world might actually make a person kinder and raise awareness.
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