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Decoupaging the text from the wrong perspective?
A blogger buys a used, beat-up copy of Anne Rice's Pandora, ends up not liking it, and decides to get crafty with it. (Well, she also says, "Don’t be mad at me, even if Pandora really is one of the worst Anne Rice novels then it’s still better written than Twilight. Just not by as much as you think.")

Anne Rice finds out.

Anne Rice links to the blog on her Facebook.

You know what happens next.

HOW DARE YOU EVEN COMPARE SHITTY ASS STEPHANIE MEYER TO THE QUALITY WORK THAT IS ANNE RICE HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU FUCKING HAG, I HOPE YOU GET HERPES

INSANE. To destroy a book like that is honestly the most disrespectful, idiotic thing anyone could ever do. An opinion is an opinion, but to do that… loved the rich descriptive narrative and historical context and character development (the other reason I read them).

Disgraceful.

This review is garbage. If you get this emotional then you are not reviewing a book, you are having a mental breakdown. I am left wondering not what is not right about the novel by Anne Rice, but what is mentally wrong with the [next comment] Person who wrote this tripe of a review.

“I couldn’t simply write my opinion I had to be a destructive little shit aren’t i awesome?”

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED - GODWIN'S LAW:

"Jose": My dear: Even if you dont like a book i dont get why you have to destroy it, Nazi memories perhaps?

Miss Articulate, the OP: The book was dying anyway, it would have been thrown away if I’d given it to a charity shop and I clearly underestimated the offense people would take. Relating it to Nazi’s is incredibly disrespectful to what people went through during WW2, including my own family so please don’t throw that around. Thanks for the comment.

Jose: It’s merely stating that destroying books is one of the things Nazis did, why get so personal? I respected your apology for offence caused, but that is yet another petty, attention-seeking remark. Did anyone refer to the other horrors the Nazis did? No. Therefore your response is irrelevant.

And there's so much more where that came from.

ETA from sandglass: "The Facebook link itself is worth looking at, too. Rice is replying to comments as well."

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	luxshine 2013-04-29 02:15 am UTC (link)
	I admit it's totally irrational on my part. It's the same for any book, even the ones I don't like. I just don't like to see books getting destroyed, even if they're a dime a dozen and absolute crap. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sandglass 2013-04-29 03:24 am UTC (link)
	Now I feel bad that you have to keep explaining yourself, aww. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	luxshine 2013-04-29 04:55 pm UTC (link)
	It's ok. It helped me to see I'm not alone in my irrationality :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lauriegilbert 2013-04-29 05:46 am UTC (link)
	Don't ever look in a library recycle bin then . . . on average an urban library throws out 1000-3000 books a month. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	hosta 2013-04-29 06:41 am UTC (link)
	I feel the same way. It makes a skittery, uncomfortable feeling go right up my spine. I had the worst time last month throwing away a book that was so decrepit that it had actually lost whole chapters of pages, including the end. I felt like I should bury it or do a flag burning ceremony or something. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

rosehiptea
2013-04-29 07:21 am UTC (link)

I have to confess I once threw a romance novel I got in the thrift store in the garbage because it was so bad I didn't want to inflict it on anyone else. It wasn't even bad in the "ideologically objectionable" way, just in the "how the hell did this get published" way.

I wouldn't even have made decoupage out of it because I didn't want to be reminded of its existence.

I did feel funny about it though; I'll admit that much.

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hosta
2013-04-29 07:34 am UTC (link)

It's funny because I remember my parents both throwing away crap books, and I remember that I used to rip long strips of paper from the bottoms of pages to chew on. And then one day I just...stopped.

That said, I've thrown away a romance novel, too. It was so revolting that I didn't want to donate it (even in a book drop) and have someone think I bought it on its merits.

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sepiamagpie
2013-04-29 09:15 am UTC (link)

I've donated books that I haven't wanted (why on earth did we have two copies of Atlas Shrugged? We're socia1ists) but one book I destroyed.

See, I was eight, and it was a book of ghost stories! And there was this one story, about a class of kids that went for a sleepover at a museum and one got mummified that scared me SO MUCH I ripped the book in half so the story wouldn't get me.

In a surprising twist, it worked. No books have mummified me to this day.

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	hosta 2013-04-29 09:18 am UTC (link)
	Perhaps my strip-ripping was enough to scare them off from me. "AHAHAHAAHA! Take this as a warning, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark! *munchmunchmunch" (Reply to this)(Parent)

	tangentialone 2013-04-30 01:52 am UTC (link)
	and I remember that I used to rip long strips of paper from the bottoms of pages to chew on. And then one day I just...stopped. ...you're not the only one. I was always careful to avoid the parts of the pages with text on them, though. Only the margins were devoured! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	catmoran 2013-04-29 03:16 pm UTC (link)
	Oh good, I don't feel as weird for still remembering the only time I ever threw out a book, in the 70s. (I can't help thinking I could be using those memory cells for something more relevant!) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	the_sun_is_up 2013-04-29 09:28 pm UTC (link)
	it was so bad I didn't want to inflict it on anyone else I have the same problem — I have a strong aversion to throwing away or destroying books, but at the same time I sometimes buy books so awful that I can't in good conscience inflict them on other people. Usually they end up in a box in the back of my closet. (Reply to this)(Parent)

cmdr_zoom
2013-04-29 11:38 pm UTC (link)

I have been tempted to throw away exactly one book, The Throne of Saturn, a ~~science~~ political fiction novel by one Allen Drury, concerning an extension of the Apollo program. Wikipedia has this to say about it:

"[Drury] dedicated the work "To the US Astronauts and those who help them fly." Political characters in the book are archetypal rather than comfortably human. The book carries a strong anti-leftist/anti-communist flavor. The book has a lot to say about interference in the space program by leftist Americans."

As someone who is both a big fan of the space program (which is why I naively plucked the book from the bin) and a dirty "leftist", I was offended and dismayed by much of the content, even as a historical piece. The astronauts are portrayed as paragons without flaw, with the exception of the one black man on the program, who everyone (including himself) knows is only there as a token. Liberals are naive dupes of inhumanly villainous Russians. And so on.

In the end, my respect for books (even toxic ones) won out, and I simply returned it to the bin where I found it.

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