A Takedown of Book Riot and Their Bad TBR Service

this is like real, hardcore journalism!

You read the title, so you mostly know what you’re here for.

Before we get to the meat, let’s do the potatoes: I have a short history with Book Riot.

My Bias

Fuck Book Riot.

Okay, I can get a little more in-depth than that.

My first encounter with Book Riot was with their Read Harder program. Which, on the surface, looks like a nice, adult summer reading thing. You try and read books in different categories and “expand your horizons.”

I opted in and gave it a shot, and I hated it.

A) Because it put me in the awkward position of trying to discover whether an author, who up to that point had not disclosed their gender, was trans. Their book made it seem like maybe they were, but I wasn’t sure whether it was autobiographical, and a few other factors made it hard to tell.

On hour .75 of looking into someone else’s gender, in order to tic a box that said “Read a book by an LGBTQIA+ author,” and when it became clear the person I read did not want to make this a public thing, I was disappointed in myself because, fuck, if an author doesn’t want to disclose that, because frankly it’s none of my goddamn business, why should they?

Which means that categories like “Read a book by someone who identifies as LGBTQIA+” is really “Read a book by someone who PUBLICLY identifies as LGBTQIA+.”

It turns reading into a contest that’s more about author demographics than it is book types, and “expanding your horizons” doesn’t necessarily mean reading different kinds of books, just different kinds of people. Which means you will have to start investigating the personal lives of authors. Which isn’t why I read books. It almost feels to me like a modern gossip mill, one of those shitty magazines that has headlines like, “Mel Gibson Gay!?” above a picture of Mel suggestively eating a hot dog.

B) Because they took the concept of bettering oneself through reading and monetized it. You used to be able to buy journals and shit, they had newsletters complete with marketing, a Goodreads group, all kinds of shit. Far be it from me to complain about making a buck, but the problem comes when you’re making a buck by encouraging people to expand their horizons and be better people by running through YOUR specific reading program.

Payment wasn’t required, but it felt, to me, like Book Riot was making money off a movement in books, which was to be more progressive by reading broadly. That was not cool.

My second encounter with Book Riot came when some asshat wrote an article about my article.

In brief, what happened is that I wrote an article about Marvel’s new dumptruck full of teenage superheroes. Basically taking the comedic stance that I’m an old man and teens should get off my lawn, I then went into a little history of the teen hero, and then questioned whether teen heroes were A) looked up to by teens and B) whether it was possible to tell stories where teen characters are responsible for their decisions.

Several people took this as me attacking the concept of DIVERSE heroes, because it did happen that most of the new teen heroes also represented a new, diverse lineup.

I didn’t talk about it much then, but I’ll say now:

1. The examples I used of adult characters who had a huge impact included John Stewart, a black Green Lantern, and Jim Rhodes, the black man who took over when Tony Stark couldn’t stay sober. These were intentional choices, demonstrating that my problem was that all the new heroes were in the same age bracket, not that they were of diverse backgrounds.

2. I found it very ironic that so many people were arguing that I was anti-diversity when I was pointing out that having everyone in the same age group is not diverse.

3. The article on Book Riot, I get it, you have to fill the main page every day, right? But it felt like mostly an intentional mis-read of what I wrote, and frankly, the most compelling piece of evidence to disprove what I said was the author’s claim that he brought free comics to high schools, and the kids seemed to enjoy them. Which is kind of like arguing that the best candy is Skittles because when you bring them to kids, free, they will eat them.

4. A lot of detractors were pissed because I was, at that time, a librarian. And they felt my narrow view of books would be harmful or something. However, I found this ironic as well because I have the ability to express a personal opinion on a sector of publishing without letting it affect my work. In fact, I would argue that it’s a very librarian-y trait to have opinions on books and literature, formed by reading those books, and to express them in an appropriate venue while simultaneously providing options to the public that may not align with your own preferences. I guess where I went wrong in the eyes of Librarian Twitter was in expressing that I do, in fact, have preferences, when what I should have done was to pretend to like books I didn’t. Or maybe it was wrong because they assumed I was expressing this at the desk whenever someone brought up a copy of a comic that I didn’t care for. Look, dicks: I was a teen librarian for about a decade, and I did a damn good job. The schools I visited and the teens I worked with would tell you as much. Even after I left I’d occasionally run into a teen from a book club or regular event, and I liked to preserve their privacy and wouldn’t approach them, but they often approached me and were very warm and happy to see me. I didn’t enjoy the moments when Ms. Marvel turned into an after-school special. I also didn’t enjoy The Limit, a book about a weird economic system where the main character solves the book’s dilemma by shooting basketballs at a helicopter. There was a lot of the stuff we read that I didn’t enjoy, and what I did about it was to listen to what they had to say, never express my opinion in the book club if it was strongly counter to theirs, and then, occasionally, in my free time, as a human being, I wrote articles or reviews of things I didn’t care for. I guess I’m still a little pissed about that one…

The third encounter, we don’t need to get too deep into this one, but the library where I’ve worked was recently profiled on Book Riot in an article about the library board’s new programming policy. I don’t have a whole lot to say about this other than that the board makes policies, I have no say in them, and this article doesn’t speak directly to or about me. I just wanted to include it for full disclosure, and also to say that I received my TBR lists way before this article came out, so the two incidents are unrelated and neither was prompted by the other.

Also, the writer confused the name of the library about halfway through, so it’s named inconsistently from the first to the second half, and nobody seems to have noticed. Real tight editing over there…

Oh, and the author makes a point and provides a link, which links to another article she wrote. So linking an op-ed to another op-ed that you wrote, without specifying that’s what you’re doing, seems a little suspect in terms of making it seem like you’re bolstering your case here.

Oh, and I know for a fact that Book Riot never asked the library for comment, which seems like common practice with stuff like this, but whatever. Journalism!

But that’s all, I’m done.

Okay, TBR!

I noticed a bit back that Book Riot started offering a service called TBR, which is a book recommendation service.

You have two options:

1. Pay for recommendations, and for $16 bucks you’ll get a letter with 3 recommended reads.

2. Pay for recommendations and for the books to be shipped to you, $87.50 for 3 books.

Let’s just jump into why these options are shitty.

Why Option 1 Is Shitty

Because this service is free at almost any library in the country.

I did some quick googling, and you can get a version of this, 100% free, from libraries in Denver, New York City, Seattle, Boise, Lawrence, Provo, Richland, Newport, Andover, Pittsburgh, Multnomah County, Pima County, Sacramento, Hudson, Arlington, Nevada, Berkeley, Whitefish Bay, West Linn, Larchmont…

And, TBH about TBR, if your library doesn’t offer the service, you could probably request it from just about any of the libraries above, and they would help you out. Because libraries are nice that way. Just tell them you’re not a local, but your library doesn’t have the service, and I’m betting someone will give you a hand.

What’s really bad about charging for reading recs is that libraries, technically, charge you for it as well. You won’t give them a credit card number when you ask for this service (and if they ask for one, run), but libraries, rather than being free, are pre-paid. Meaning: Your taxes are what pay for the library. So while you don’t hand over a five-spot for a book recommendation, if you paid taxes, you ALREADY PAID for this service (not to mention the books, but we’ll get to that), and you shouldn’t let Book Riot double dip you like this.

PLUS, the service from libraries is much, much better because there is no bias and no ulterior motive. Which we’ll also cover.

Book Riot claims to be a friend of libraries, but they’re offering a service that’s not as good as the version most libraries offer, and it’s less accessible. Friend indeed…

Why Option 2 Is Shitty

It’s fucking expensive.

I looked into the cost of books and shipping and all that, and while the price tag isn’t too steep considering the cost of retail and shipping, it’s still high, in my opinion.

Plus, if I’m going to drop that much on new books, I’m going local, or at least local-ish, or at least buying from a bookstore of my choice as opposed to an online content farm churning out endless trash.

But what REALLY sucks the long hog about it is this: In this version, they make three recommendations, find them in hardcover, then pop them in the mail and send them. BEFORE they tell you which titles you’re getting.

Gett a book you don’t like? Tough shit. A book you already read? Tough shit. No refunds, no exchanges.

Even though the price isn’t incredibly high for 3 recommended hardcovers, shipped, it’s a pretty large sum to gamble on 3 unknowns. If even one of the three is something you have zero interest in, sorry fucko, you’re still out almost $90 for the quarter.

It seems like they could easily send you 5 recommendations digitally, you could tic a box on 3, and they could send you those. Seems like a more reasonable way to spend $90.

Now, this is conspiratorial, so I’ll be clear about that: They also send ONLY hardcovers, and it does make me suspicious that this is a bit of a scam.

See, if you’re a bookstore, and if you have a bunch of hardcover copies of Book X laying around, wouldn’t it be convenient if you could push those through a service that’s ostensibly recommending tailored lists, but is perhaps heavily influenced by what’s in stock and what could be cleared off the shelves?

I know that sounds like tinfoil hat shit, but consider: This entire thing is money-motivated, so it’s not far-fetched to wonder whether this aspect taints the process. I mean, if I’ve got 5 copies of some piece of shit that underperformed and I’m never going to get rid of, this is like the ideal garbage chute.

Are you getting books that seem perfect for you, or are they working backwards, seeing what crap they have left over and figuring out which best match your requests?

Bibliologists

What’s a bibliologist, you ask? It’s the made-up term for book recommenders that TBR uses to build your list.

I’m not gonna go into the training and work librarians do to recommend books, I’m just gonna wrap it up really quickly with the biggest lesson that I want book recommenders to hear: It’s about the requestor, not about you.

People have a really hard time with that. You can LOVE books and read a shitton of them, but that doesn’t mean you have the skills to recommend books that other people, whose tastes differ from yours, will enjoy.

Now, when I looked at the bibliologists (they are listed on the site) at the time of my first request, there were 26 bibliologists, and 0 were male.

Disclaimer:

This is research I did by looking up the bibliologists on Book Riot. Most of them have written columns or other content, and I would check the pronouns used in their bios. I understand this isn’t a perfect system, but hey, Book Riot are the folks who had me looking up every author’s gender for their stupid Read Harder bullshit, so fair’s fair.

At the time of my third recommendations letter, 1 of 31 bibliologists used traditionally male pronouns and presented himself as male.

I don’t mean to sound like an advocate for men’s rights. But people, the world of reading and books is a female-dominated one. HEAVILY.

74% of people in publishing identify as cis women. 74! When women in STEM were 27% we all freaked the fuck out and started programs like Girls Who Code.

And I know what you’re saying, “But Pete, the executives are mostly male!”

No, they aren’t.

38% of executives and board members identify as male.

People like to use that stat to say, “Ah ha! See, there are more male executives and board members, hence their power is disproportionate!” But…they’re significantly less than half of those powerful positions and sit at right about half the population. So the verbal acrobatics of “disproportionately male leadership” are technically factual. But it’d be like posing the abundance of black male authors as problematic because black male authors make up 2% of published authors, yet make up 5% of the current bestseller lists. Is the problem in this hypothetical their success, or is the problem really just a manipulation of stats to make a point which stupid people will fall for?

Anyway, with the possible exception of the authorial side of things, women hold the majority of power in books, whether that be selling, marketing, publishing, and yes, librarianship.

And we all know that women read more than men.

In looking at the bibliologist list, I can definitely applaud Book Riot for diversifying the field. Their roster looks to be a lot more diverse than the staff at your average publisher or library. Except in terms of gender where they managed somehow, some way, to do it worse.

This matters to me because I am a man. I’m not an incredible example of masculine virility or whatever, I wouldn’t gift anyone with a mold of my penis, but I am a man who does like to mix up the reading, and in that mix I do like what we can call “traditionally masculine voices.” I don’t read Hemingway, Carver, Cormac McCarthy, and others like them exclusively, but I like them and think they have a place in my reading list.

Is it possible that a group of women could recommend good, masculine books? Of course. But does it inspire confidence when a team of 30 that’s clearly been assembled with diversity in mind has one or fewer men? Not really.

Does it make me, a man who identifies as male, feel like the world of books and reading is for me?

Nope.

And to be frank, it wouldn’t matter to me if Book Riot wasn’t all up their own ass about diversity and marginalized voices, which we’ll get to.

Filling Out the Form

I filled out the request. I went for the recommendations only, no books, thanks. See the above rant on the pre-paid status of libraries.

Most of the questions were pretty standard stuff, what do you like, what do you hate. But then I answered two of the questions in a way that was honest and genuinely what I wanted, but I wondered if it might challenge my bibliologist:

ANY TYPES OF CONTENT THAT ARE DEALBREAKERS FOR YOU? YOUR BIBLIOLOGIST WILL EXCLUDE BOOKS CONTAINING THESE.

I'm not looking for recommendations that are activist non-fiction or fiction with activist elements. I read this stuff, and I've got a handle on it for now. Please don't avoid authors of color or people who identify as LGBTQIA+ or any other type of person. I'm happy to read works by anyone, just outside of that narrow corridor of activism as literature.

ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT YOUR BIBLIOLOGIST TO KNOW BEFORE THEY PICK YOUR BOOKS?

…This feels weird to say, but I'm going for it: I'm not very interested in recommendations of books specifically concerned with the topic of diversity, especially in non-fiction where that's the focus topic. It's not that I dislike these books, I've read some that are awesome, but I already have a lot of experiences with them, and that relationship continues, so it's just not something that I think I need recommended at this time. This doesn't mean AVOID books from diverse POVs and authors. It means I've got a healthy to-read list of books that specifically address the topic of diversity at their core.

Pretty clear, right?

Now, I knew this would be challenging because buried in the Terms of Service (yes, I actually looked these over) was this:

Each recommendation set will feature traditionally marginalized voices.

So, I set forth as a challenge for my bibliologist, please recommend me books by and about marginalized people, but I’d prefer the topic not be their marginalized status, at the core.

That’s Not Fair!

Isn’t it? Okay, let me give you a list of 10 books that would fit the category just fine:

1. Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk

2. How to Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

3. Upgrade Soul by Ezra Clayton Daniels

4. God’s Gym by John Edgar Wideman

5. Megahex by Simon Hanselmann

6. Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson

7. Animals Eat Each Other by Elle Nash

8. Girl Town by Casey Nowak

9. Video by Meera Nair

10. In the River by Jeremy Robert Johnson

By the way, I made this list by looking through what I’ve read in the last few years, plugging in books by or about people who were traditionally marginalized, and it took all of 10 minutes.

If you add 3 or more books from that list to your to-read pile, you owe me $15 bucks, by the way.

But…That’s Regressive

Well…is it?

I mean, there’s the list above, and I’d say I’m doing an okay job of reading marginalized voices. Could I do better? Of course, we all could.

But the thing is, last year I read nearly 100 books. So the TBR recs I got, even if I read all of them, represent about 10% of my reading.

TBR doesn’t need to provide ALL of my reading, it doesn’t need to give me the full spectrum of what’s out there. I want to use the service for something more specific, and what I wanted and specified was some odd books, interesting books, and books concerned with topics other than diversity.

What I’m saying to my bibliologist is that I need recommendations along other lines, simply because I don’t have trouble locating diverse books.

Book Riot itself puts up endless lists of reads from marginalized authors. I’ve learned my lesson, more than once, that if you’re going to put up a book list of any type, I don’t care if it’s a a list of manly books for manly men, it’d better have some diverse choices on there. Which means you really aren’t going to read a lot of book list articles that are a bunch of white dudes anymore.

What I’m saying to my bibliologist is that I know how to find diverse titles, I’m set, and I’m looking for something else from this particular service.

The Theft of Reviews

When my first set of recommendations came in, I noticed they were…really well-written.

I don’t mean this in an insulting way, I mean this in a way where it definitely sounded like the person recommending was intimately familiar with the books being recommended, and like they’d spent quite a bit of time crafting their letter to me.

I’ve been around this block before, recommending books, and I can tell you that the style and depth of the recommendations seemed outsized somehow. Seemed fishy.

A lesser reader would probably just shrug and be happy about it. A lesser reader, who’d never done recommendations themselves, would probably figure this was the level of service they deliver all the time!

But I’m an EVEN LESSER reader, which means I’m petty, cynical, and suspicious.

Let’s end the suspense: The letter I got and the book recommendation text were mostly ripped off from Goodreads reviews. And by “ripped off” I don’t mean that they were similar, I mean that by googling specific phrases, I found them, exactly, in Goodreads reviews.

For the sake of being complete and transparent, I’ll go through them.

Text from my letter that appears, exactly, in this review from “Tim”:

Matsuda’s retelling of these kinds of traditional tales deliberately challenges and subverts the vengeful or tragic femininity so common to these forms. The tone of these stories is frequently comical, and occasionally melancholy, but never without a sense of whimsy making for a unique, but rewarding reading experience.

Text from my letter that appears in this review by “Makenzie”:

This is a smart deconstruction of the relationship between how we imagine the end of the world and colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism.

And the third was cobbled together from a few different reviews, all of which appear on the first page of reviews on that title’s Goodreads page.

Just in case I need to explain what’s bad about this:

1. It’s presenting someone else’s work as your own

2. You’re commoditizing someone else’s work without compensating them

3. You’re using someone else’s review without their consent

4. You’re charging me for something that I could be getting for free.

NPR’s Book Concierge does this, taking reviews from the web and using them to describe books. The difference is that A) I am not charged to use Book Concierge, and B) Book Concierge credits the review’s author and links to the original review. That, to me, is fair game.

I might even accept if TBR cited other reviews. I would question the value of the service, for sure, but at least it’s being honest and transparent.

I would also accept if TBR was ripping off Book Riot reviews or even Goodreads reviews written by Book Riot contributors, but from what I could tell, the Goodreads folks had no affiliation with Book Riot.

Again, the library, which offers this service for free, would NEVER do this. This is a HUGE no-no in putting together a list of recommended reads. There’s difference of opinion when it comes to using portions of professional reviews, but nobody in the library world would tolerate scooping up a review and presenting it as your own work.

What Happened When I Asked About It?

I emailed to inquire whether review theft was normal, accepted practice, or whether I’d gotten the shaft from an unscrupulous bibliologist.

I was apologized to, and to make up for it, I was given a second set of recommendations for free.

This was not a satisfactory resolution because:

1. The Goodreads folks were still not given any credit or compensation

2. I still don’t know whether this is common, accepted TBR practice or not. I asked that question very directly and did not receive an answer. So it’s possible I was working with a rogue agent who was doing things her own way, but it’s also possible that this is common, accepted practice, and I’m just one of a few people who has noticed.

3. Based on the initials signed at the end of my letter, the Bibliologist who did my list is still working for TBR.

Possible Theories

1. It is possible that my bibliologist, even if she was stopped at this point, has been doing many, many requests and has been filling in letters this way for a long time.

2. Because Book Riot did not comment on whether this is accepted practice, I have to assume that it is. If it were not accepted practice, they could very easily have confirmed as much.

3. Because TBR letters are sent to individuals rather than being published online, there’s no accountability in terms of what is being sent to who, and therefore it is possible and likely that many of the letters they send contain material stolen from other sources.

4. While it’s possible this is one isolated incident, it’s equally possible that this is standard practice which still continues.

5. It’s also possible that bibliologists contribute recommendations to a database, and the recs are pulled from there and customized a bit. Meaning: these same ripped-off recommendations could have been re-used hundreds of times by now.

6. The use of Goodreads reviews as opposed to professional reviews makes me suspicious that this is common practice because the chance of getting away with using a Goodreads review is higher than the chance of getting away with using something from Publishers Weekly.

How Were The Recommendations?

Remember how I said that I was happy to hear from diverse voices, but I prefer that diversity not be a core topic?

Here’s how the publisher description starts for one of the picks: “Fiction. LGBTQIA Studies.”

Other books readers supposedly enjoyed, if they enjoyed this one, are books focused on feminism and trans issues.

Another of the recommended books sounds interesting, however it’s also very popular in academic circles, especially circles concerned with CRT, and they love to view this through their different lenses and whatnot.

Here’s part of the publisher-provided description:

The pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition.

I’m Telling You For the Last Time

I have no problem reading books that get into these issues, and I also understand that a book by an author who has different demographics than mine may imbue their work with elements of their personality or identity.

I’m not complaining about being recommended a book that takes place in Central America. I’m not complaining because there’s some Spanish in the book that’s untranslated.

I read these sorts of things on my own. I do not have trouble finding them. They are not what I requested for this particular service at this particular time.

In Fact, Let’s Put a Finer Point On It

I’m of the opinion that this form of promoting diversity, shoving people into diverse books, is mostly bullshit.

In fact, I wrote an entire column about tricking people into diverse reading.

I’ll make it quick: demanding that people diversify their reading, or shaming them for reading narrowly, doesn’t work. Because reading is something most people do solo, privately, at home, and therefore there’s no follow-through. There’s no pat on the back when you do it well, and there’s no consequence when you fuck it up.

What’s better is to be a little tricky about it. Which is recommending books that are by or about marginalized people, but they’re more subtle.

For example, instead of recommending Between the World and Me, recommend Ronnie Coleman’s autobiography to someone with my taste. I’ll get sucked in by the weightlifting narrative, the story of a young black man who graduated at the top of his class but couldn’t get an accounting job for reasons he doesn’t speculate on, but it seems pretty clear that between being a black man and his Louisiana accent, people didn’t want to hire him.

You’re not going to reach reluctant readers with academic texts that examine the intersection of the patriarchy and economics with a racial lens. The only people you reach with that are people who are in those circles. Which means you’re only recommending those books to people who will have no interest in them or people who already know about them and read in that vein.

Which means you’re reaching nobody.

The Numbers

I’ve gotten three letters, 9 recommendations total.

I would say 3 of the recommendations piqued my interest. 4-5 were at least not opposed to my interests as expressed in the form I filled out. Which means the worthwhile recommendations where somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2.

Is that a good ratio?

Nobody’s going to be perfect when it comes to this, a recommendation can be a hard thing to make. This is part of why the service I was a part of (another reminder: free) shoots for 10 recommendations. Because taking 10 shots might still give you a 1 out of 3 success ratio, but that still leaves the person with 3 titles.

A Little More About The Form

Having been on the other side of the recommendation process, I can tell you I did a good job filling out the form completely, giving a lot more info than most.

It’s always difficult when someone is shy and doesn’t make with a lot of info, but it happens quite often. Which makes sense because there are a lot of people who use these services because they haven’t read a lot they particularly love.

Which leads me to believe that (another conspiracy coming) people probably don’t do an amazing job filling out the form, get books that are a ho-hum, and then turn around and blame themselves for half-assing the form.

What Do Others Think?

I found it interesting that these recommendations were kept a secret. A good recommender would probably put up a lot of samples, say, for someone who likes thrillers that take place outside the U.S. This is a great way to market the service.

…unless the service isn’t very good.

Here’s one online review:

What a scam! I was gifted this service by a well meaning relative. I don’t need it, I already have about 350 books in my tbr pile on goodreads. I immediately notified them I wouldn’t be using the service and they should refund the money. It is paid in full for a year and they won’t refund a dime to the purchaser! They feel it is acceptable to keep over $300 for providing no service and no books! I can understand a small sign up fee, but a year subscription?? Crazy. Don’t give them your money. There are several FREE online resources to recommend books based on your reading tastes.

May I just say that this is total bullshit?

I could get it if they were like, “We have to keep the first quarter because we’re already working on it, but we’ll refund the rest.” But this is just petty, money-grubbbing horseshit. When the amount is $300? C’mon.

Here’s another:

Received duplicate book and unwilling to fix. There are too many other book services that will accommodate a swap or return, or simply send you a new one on them!

More Conspiracy

I briefly went to this gym in town that has changed names 3 or 4 times in the last 10 years.

The reason for this, I’m sure, is because it’s a horrible gym, they have horrible financial practices, and by skipping from name to name and pretending like they may be under new management, they can briefly open the window to new customers to sucker in.

I noticed that TBR and Book Riot seem to be consciously creating distance between themselves.

Make no mistake, they are not individual entities. The money that comes out of the bank is sent to “Book Riot.”

Not sure whether it’s Book Riot that’s distancing itself from TBR or the other way round, but this seems fishy. Why would you distance these two services? Wouldn’t people be apt to say, “Ah, Book Riot. I read an article there. They seem like a reasonable group of people to recommend books.”?

For Love or Money

I wouldn’t say it’s unreasonable if TBR looked over my request and said, “Hey, we read over your request, and because of our Terms of Service, we can’t complete it. Here’s your money back.”

In fact, if they did that, I’d feel like, “Good for them. They’re sticking to their guns.”

What I’m not such a fan of is getting books that absolutely go against my request and still being charged for it.

Look, let’s say you’re a fancy mixologist. You do shit like add wood smoke to the inside of a rocks glass before you pour bourbon in it. Shit like that.

Someone comes to your bar and wants a Budweiser.

It’s totally fine to say, “Sorry, we don’t have it.”

It’s totally fine to say, “Sorry, we don’t have it, but here’s the closest thing we DO have, I think you’d like it.”

It’s not totally fine to take the person’s money and give them some weird persimmon cocktail, and when they complain, it’s their fault because they’re narrow-minded.

Why All The Fuss?

Because I think Book Riot sort of sucks, and TBR REALLY sucks, and I’d like to dissuade people from using either.

On one hand, Book Riot is a site that has contributors that write articles, and I’m assuming they get paid. I don’t know how much, but at least it’s something.

That said, the shittiness of the TBR service, to me, is a reflection of the site, as a whole.

You know how every local news station had their person who went around and tried out crappy businesses and exposed them to the public? That’s me, baby. I’ve always wanted to do it, and this was my chance.

Insert lousy jingle here.