That one guy who said my favorite author was 'overrated'

I was at my book club meeting last month at the Downtown Library in Portland, and this guy named Mark said he couldn't finish a single book by Octavia Butler because she was 'too preachy about race'. I asked him if he actually read Kindred or just the back cover, and he got all defensive. Has anyone else had someone dismiss a whole author based on like one page?

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amyh213d ago

Oh, I've been there. That's frustrating. But I do want to gently correct something - you said "a single book" by Octavia Butler, but the guy said he couldn't finish "a single book" by her, so he probably tried more than one. Maybe he read the first few pages of a couple of them and gave up. I've seen that happen with folks who just aren't ready for certain authors yet. Kindred is such a powerful book, though, and it's not like she's hiding the themes - the time travel plot literally forces the main character to confront race and history head on. If someone can't handle that, they're probably looking for something lighter, which is fine, but calling her "overrated" because she writes about her actual lived experience seems unfair.