Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud

Dear Anne Rice,

Hi. It's me again. It's been about a year since we first met on not so friendly terms and I'm irritated that I feel the need to talk to you again. Open letters are highly passive aggressive and I typically do not care for them, but I don't feel like being attacked by your fan poodles so I'll just rant here on my own personal space.

Shall we begin? Off we go!

First, how can I put this kindly? Nobody is fucking scared of you or your meager petition on Change.org. The reason that Nola was met with (mostly) civil conversation is because she didn't come waltzing into the forum with a big ego looking for an argument as you have done time and time again. Are you laughing because you think everyone who participated in the discussion were on their best behavior because of a so-called change you helped inspire?

Well, I hate to burst your overgrown bubble, but perhaps we aren't the evil, wicked, hate-filled, mean, nasty, gangster bully trolls you make us out to be. Many (most) of us are genuine, kind, and considerate people who just enjoy reading. We have families, friends, loved ones, careers, and quite a few of us are highly educated folks, including book smart and street smart. We have the capacity to enjoy life. We do not hide out in back alleys with a hit list of authors we want to attack and denigrate.

We are flawed since we are human. We get angry, snarky, fed up, and yes, perhaps mean at times. We get frustrated. We are human beings and I think a lot of us are fucking tired of being treated like complete pieces of shit. 

You know what else we are tired of happening? Being worried every time we write a review of a book or chapter sample. Being worried that some author is going to flip their shit and attack us because of a bad review or other opinion we express. A lot of people are tired of being harassed, mocked, having our conversations taken out of context, blatant lies made up about us, and feeling like we are being watched constantly for anything that could paint us in a bad light.

But I'm not scared of you and I'm not running from anyone. I'm still here. I'm still reviewing how I want to review and if you don't like it, maybe you should take your own advice:

"And frankly, if you're not willing to broadcast a review write a book for the whole world to read and share their thoughts on, well, maybe it's best not to review write period."