Anonymous #1 19h

“We both laughed at our sons big balls” “he banged on my ass like an african bongo drum”

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Anonymous OP 18h

Yeah we all know the Colleen Hoover quotes. That is one author in a sea of others. I don’t like her, but she gets people into reading, and often they move to better literature. When the average adult reads less than a book a year, I do actually think reading junk food is better than nothing. And I’m not so stuck up that I can’t find a common ground with other READERS.

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Anonymous #1 15h

Do they actually move to better literature though? I wonder sometimes if our current literacy crisis isn’t caused by people not reading but by people consistently reading books that don’t actually challenge them.

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Anonymous #2 14h

Nah it is caused by the cutting of education funding, the stifling of education by banning essential curriculum, and the short attention spans baked into people from childhood by tiktok, YouTube, and non-educational kids programs. Not by people actively reading. You can learn from any genre of books. Maybe not so much from CoHo, but I’ve even had folks tell them it helped them through their own divorce. Literature has value whether you like the book or not.

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Anonymous #1 14h

Wouldn’t you agree, though, that the cutting of education funding and the shrinking of attention spans could be shaping our current culture of comfort and convenience, where people are discouraged from intellectual curiosity and learn to stagnate where they’re at? I totally agree that all books have some value, but I also believe (maybe you don’t) that some books have more value than others, and that people become more literate and more intelligent when they’re encouraged to keep gradually…

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Anonymous #2 14h

Amen

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Anonymous #2 13h

Sure, but having a superiority complex helps literally no one. You can suggest better books to people & still bond over a love for reading. It’s clear from your original post that you look down on certain genres, which again, helps no one and only alienates readers from moving up when all you’re doing is calling them stupid for liking xyz. Hating on smutty romance/ readers is as damaging to the reading community as banning more challenging books from schools. When we should be standing together.

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Anonymous #2 13h

*I did not see that you are not OP, so I take back what I said about you looking down on others for what they read. But also, the world is literal hell right now. Sometimes people want to read easier lit for entertainment, and there is nothing wrong with that. Not everyone, especially working folks, challenged academics, etc has the capacity or need to hone reading as a skill. At least they are reading. Which is still beneficial even if it is easy romance.

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Anonymous #1 10h

Hey I don’t want to hurt you or anyone’s feelings, I read romance in addition to classics, philosophy, Don’t take it personally that sometimes others like myself wish romance readers would push themselves further, it’s almost never personal. It’s simply that many people who *are* capable of more difficult/ grown lit won’t touch it. And that sucks because empathy and critical thinking are both skills expanded by encountering more challenging work. Most people aren’t trying to shit on you guys,

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Anonymous #3 10h

We just want people to try to be their best selves. And we believe it can make a material difference in the world if people were to embrace literature more (beyond entertainment)

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Anonymous #1 10h

People aren’t always gonna be “nice” about stuff that they’re passionate about but if you don’t take them too personally maybe there’s room for you to understand them beyond their tone

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Anonymous #3 10h

I agree with all of this, and I’d like to emphasize the point that literacy is absolutely a crucial skill for everyone, even if they’re not intellectuals or academics, because literacy represents awareness, knowledge, communication, empathy, and complex thought, all things we desperately need in today’s world.

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