Quick to judge
Here’s the thing I don’t like about my book club: I think they’re book snobs.
There are at least two people who like science fiction, but not many more than that. And I can understand not liking it (well, I can’t, but I’m not going to give anyone a hard time about it), but that doesn’t mean you should look down your nose at it. They read The Martian sometime last year, and that has become their go-to joke when they need an example of a science fiction book they all hated. Really? The Martian? That book was more science than fiction. If you want an example of bad science fiction, I can help you out, but The Martian ain’t it.
They’re not completely against light fiction. Most of the group liked The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, which is pretty light, but even then, a couple of them dismissed it as candy. Our next book is by Elizabeth Gilbert, which is a necessary antidote to The Sympathizer, but I expect half the group to think it’s twaddle, too.
Of COURSE not everyone in the group is going to like each book, but you can dislike something without dismissing an entire genre as beneath your notice. At the end of the last meeting, someone suggested we go around the table and say what we’re reading now, and I didn’t want to. I’m reading science fiction, and I didn’t want to have to deal with their judgment*. That is not a nice feeling.
I need to find (or start) an SFF book club. I guess it’ll have to wait until we stop moving. It would suck to start one up and then move away.
*Can someone explain to me WHY “judgment” is more correct than “judgement”? It looks SO WRONG.