Book Blogger Confessions 4

It's time for another Book Blogger Confession hosted by Karen at For What It's Worth and Tiger at All-Consuming Meda.

February 20th: Social networking with authors: Do you interact on Twitter/Facebook/etc with authors? Does it affect how you review their work or do you look at their books differently because you're on friendly terms with them?

I know becoming friends with an author shapes how you view their work. I don't want to promote a book I didn't enjoy simply because I'm friends with an author. Of course I follow them on Twitter and I've talked to a few on there, but I'm far from friends with them. I'm always surprised when they take time out of their day to reply to something I said. I've met a few authors when I went to my first book festival last November and they were all really nice, but I don't want that to affect the way I review their books. This is hard for me to say because one of the authors I met was Ellen Hopkins and she's my favorite author so naturally I want to love all of her books. So far I have enjoyed them all greatly, but there's always the chance that she could write something I don't mesh well with and I don't want to force myself to like a book if it wasn't meant to be. Especially since I've met Ellen and she's very sweet. She deserves more than that from a fan. I'm also a huge smart-ass. I'm very sarcastic and I know it doesn't always come across in my text so I try to leave that sort of thing off my blog because I don't want to have the same issue with authors that other bloggers have had. It would be unfortunate to get into a fight with an author I like simply because of a misunderstanding, or because 1 book didn't fit in my life from their entire collection of works.

I am very good friends with an author. We became friends because I read his book and loved it. We started talking about it and now we talk about all kinds of things. It probably wasn't the smartest thing ever for me to befriend an author after 1 book. Mostly because his book is non-fiction and that isn't my genre at all. I don't regret it though. He just finished working on his second book and it's editing now. He has given me the privilege of reading chapters of it as he finished so I could give my opinion. Even he could write something I'm not particularly fond of, but hopefully that won't happen. He's the only author I'm "friends" with so I don't think it's a big problem.

I don't know if I would become friends with my favorite authors even if I had the chance because there are issues that can come up between people such as what each person believes. I know there are some bloggers that won't read books about angels/fallen angels because of their beliefs. That's fine. I'm a Christian, but I haven't found a book that made me uncomfortable due to what I believe. I've read books with angels/demons, vampires, witches, faeries, homosexuality, and emotional problems. I don't think my belief in God should affect how I read fiction. I am more selective of my non-fiction because of this, but if a fictional book sounds good to me then I'm going to read it. I don't want to become friends with an author, and then say I can't read any more of their books because we have a difference in beliefs. P.S. If I jumped to another topic with this last bit, my bad.