Friday, March 4, 2016

Author Trust

This is something that's actually been on my mind since late last year. You see, I was reading this book by one of my favorite authors and I couldn't help but think it was rather weak. That's not to say the book wasn't good - but there was a little something lacking in it to be as awesome as her other books.

Well, to make a long story short, there were moments I really struggled with reading the book (didn't like the direction it was headed, or it was moving too slow) but I still gave it four stars.

Thinking about this, I really did enjoy it that much - but only because I trusted the author enough to not totally ruin it for me. If I'd been reading a new-to-me author (or maybe one I didn't trust as much) I would have been more concerned about the direction - which would have made me enjoy it less.

Originally, I thought about calling this post 'Author Favoritism' - but then I realized, that's not what this is at all.

This is author trust, where I firmly believed that the author - who wrote so many books that I loved - would not write something I hated and 'break the trust.'

Honestly, after thinking about it I've realized this is something that's very important to me.

I want to feel that I trust the author. Sure, an author can rip my heart out and chop it up into little itty-bitty pieces and - as long as there's a nice, heavy bandage wrapped round it by the end of the book - I can still trust them.

I guess it's partially a case of finding an author that writes my type of books and doesn't have all the things in there that I don't want to read.

But it also takes a pretty special level of author trust for me to be reading part of a book where I can see things going so badly but feeling comfortable enough - having enough faith in the author - that I don't actually worry about how badly it could turn out.

Have you ever experienced what I like to call 'author trust'? Have you ever been in a similar situation like me? Or maybe you have no clue what I'm talking about? Either way, I'd love to hear your thoughts!