Now that you’ve seen the middle point, let’s travel back in time. Which is kind of how Impossible People functions, so this is fitting. Look at me, doing a writery thing!
I read Julia Wertz’s Impossible People last weekend. I put it on hold digitally, and in print, and then digitally again via a second library location. This is my way of saying I was pretty excited.
I loved Wertz’s previous books, and she was one of the creators that I tried to follow, one of those writers whose work I would just read regardless of what it was about, one of those creators who you can just trust to always do something well worth your time.
Impossible People is the story of Wertz’s drinking and recovery, mostly, sort of. It’s about several other things, too, but if I had to do the one-line summary, that’d be it.
It’s also a little bit about living in New York City, being a lovable curmudgeon, relationships with other people, including family and friends. It’s a slice of life, like Wertz’s other books, but this one has a little bit more of an overall thrust, an overarching narrative.
The Good: I like that the book shows recovery/sobriety as something an average person can do and can manage. I like that the book presents sobriety as something that’s okay to pursue, even if you’re drinking a bit too much as opposed to robbing a bodega to support a heroin habit that has hollowed you out completely, sort of a refutation of the “need” to out-rock-bottom other addicts. I like that the book shows alcoholism as something people kind of suffer from in different ways. I like that the book reminds people that recovery isn’t always a linear, ever upward process for everyone.
The Bad: It felt a little overlong, and I think it would’ve benefitted from some tightening. For me personally, the romantic relationship that provides us the starting point for the book, a cliffhanger we then time travel away from, might’ve contributed to the book feeling a little overstuffed. I don’t think the story was uninteresting or badly told, I just felt like there was a lot in here already, and maybe some omission might’ve made for a better reading experience.
The above is all missing from my original Goodreads review, the one Wertz tweeted about, because there are certain kinds of comics/books I tend to avoid reviewing in-depth.
If someone does a book about their baby who died, their journey to sobriety, a sexual assault, stuff like that, I’ll often leave off a star rating, and I’ll often talk about something else entirely in the review space.
Leaving off a star rating on Goodreads doesn’t count as a zero, by the way. I checked. It doesn’t count as a review in terms of stars at all. No loss, no gain.
The reason I do this is that I feel like there’s something wrong with giving a book like Impossible People three stars. It’s hard to not feel like I’m reviewing the person’s experience.
If a book about a personal tragedy or struggle is a 5-star, unbelievably great book, I’ll give it a star rating. Otherwise, I’ll probably leave it off. If the book is a total banger, I’ll tell other people on Goodreads that I think it’s a total banger. If it’s less than a total banger, I’ll write about…kind of whatever.
Impossible People, for me, was a 3-star book. It’s good. It’s not my favorite of Wertz’s. It didn’t have the humor level of her others, for reasons that make sense, but the big laughs are part of what I really have loved about the other books.
So, because it wasn’t a wholehearted recommendation, I wrote about the weirdness of Wikipedia photos (the entire review is below, if you’d care to read it).
Cut to a day or two later, and I accidentally came across Wertz’s tweet.
Okay, this happened because part of my job involves managing a social media account for an organization, that organization follows Wertz (because I clicked Follow, like I said, I’m a fan). Her tweet was the first one that popped up when I logged in to do the kind of nonsense I do for work:
Now, I mostly took this to be a “how odd” kind of thing. But the comments on the tweet, from others and from Wertz, were of a much harsher tone (some of these are quoted below).
I updated the review, quoted the tweet:
And then got a reply from Wertz (to which I replied):
And generally felt shitty for about a week now.
A couple people were kind enough to come to my defense on Goodreads, and I appreciate that:
And I do agree with Erica, I HAVE, many times, avoided potential friendships.
But also, I agree with Erica, Goodreads is something that is meant for readers to use.
I understand what Wertz is saying: It’s very difficult to put out a book, especially one that’s close to your heart, and then to have people seemingly make fun of it or kind of dismiss it.
On the other hand, I feel strongly that it’s important to recognize that I am not a professional, paid reviewer. The Goodreads page for Impossible People is not an advertising platform for the book. I mean, it IS, but it’s not one that the author has control over.
Nobody gave me a copy of Impossible People in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. Nobody gave me a copy of Impossible People for a totally biased review, either. I never win those damn Goodreads giveaways. I’m cursed.
Negative reviews are hard.
I’m someone who has also put books on Goodreads, tried to avoid the reviews, had a review ruin my day.
But, ultimately, you have to look at a negative review as being only what it is: a person’s opinion.
I took one of my bad reviews and put it on a t-shirt.
I also feel strongly that the deal I make with a reader is this: They spend the time to read my book, and if they don’t like my book, they bought it (probably), they read it (mostly), and if they feel a way about it, they’ve earned their space to talk about it. Or, to not talk about it.
I don’t like to talk about the “right” to review, I like to talk about the reader “earning” the space to do with as they please.
Their review space is theirs, whether it’s positive or negative, whether it’s total nonsense, a bunch of gifs, or copied and pasted text from the 1920 census.
What I was most taken aback by with this whole thing was that my review of Impossible People was in no way negative. It says nothing bad about the book, doesn’t push readers away. It’s not a frothing recommendation, either. It’s closer to being a chunk of text that feels almost accidentally copied and pasted into the review box.
If someone were to review one of my books by doing something like putting in a shopping list for the week, I would think it was…odd, and I might end up telling people about it just because I would find it funny that someone was doing something so strange.
But I do feel that seeing my review as insulting is a stretch.
Here’s the harsh part. There’s a nicer part coming, but this is the harsh part of the journey, the long stretch in the desert where the A/C just isn’t strong enough.
Authors: I don’t owe you a review for your book, and I damn sure don’t owe you a certain type of review of your book on Goodreads.
From what I saw, in a brief look at Wertz’s Twitter feed, mine was the only amateur review she highlighted.
Highlighting that review was a choice. Pushing it out was a choice. Spreading only that one Goodreads review was a choice.
Further, I definitely felt like this was a downward punch.
I know Wertz isn’t Stephen King or some shit, but Wertz’s personal story has been put out by a subsidiary of Hachette (as was her previous book). Part of Impossible People is about Wertz traveling to France for a convention sort of thing, presumably something that her French publisher bankrolled. Her books are in major bookstores, in a ton of libraries, they’re all over the place. As indie comics go, there are bigger stars than Wertz, and there is an infinite universe of smaller ones.
I think what we’re talking about here is Wertz viewing me trying to make her BOOK about me.
From my perspective, my REVIEW was about me. Which is different.
I consider myself a writer, but not on Wertz’s level. I do not have much in terms of a platform. I put things out here and there, do some column writing, and I write goofy shit on Goodreads because that’s one of the places a nobody can write and some people might see it. I write things on Goodreads that are a mix of personal blog, book review, tangents, rants, pure silliness, and diary.
Some other Goodreads users HATE it. Some enjoy it. It’s a mix.
I’m walking a line here. I don’t want to say I have the “right” to do what I want with my Goodreads stuff…but I want to say that, for people like me, who try to entertain others and make the internet interesting, who do creative work in unusual mediums, who do this stuff on the side, not as a job—for people like me, spaces to write things are not easy to carve out. This is what Ive got, and I work with what I’ve got.
Here’s the nicer part:
After a week, the review had garnered a couple likes and a couple comments, and this sort of activity is what pushes a review to the top of the reviews list. The result of all this: My review was the first one that came up for Impossible People.
In some ways, I felt like this was an object lesson: Goodreads doesn’t care whether a review is good or bad, the review that garners the most attention will continue to garner the most attention. This is something important for EVERYONE online to understand.
On the other hand, Wertz didn’t tag me in her tweet. She didn’t address me directly, at all. It was pure(ish) chance that I saw the tweet. I also don’t think Wertz would have predicted that the result of all this would be increased popularity of the review that would put it at the top of the page for her book. I certainly didn’t predict that.
And I just felt shitty.
I didn’t mean to hurt Wertz’s feelings. I really had no idea that she would feel like my review was so intensely disrespectful of her and her work.
I talked myself out of it here and there, I told myself that is she thought THAT was bad, wait until an actual negative review comes in.
I figured this was mostly a product of the book being new and the review numbers still being low, and once they go up, mine will get lost in the mix.
But as the week wore on, my review continued to float up top.
And so, for the first time ever, I took a review down.
I want to be clear: This was never anything Wertz asked me to do, it’s not something anyone pressured me to do. I’m taking it down because when people like it, it reminds me of this bad exchange I had with an author that whose work I’ve enjoyed a lot.
This isn’t about me and my rights to do what I want on Goodreads, it’s about me removing something that I would sooner forget.
This is about me not wanting this whole exchange to be the first word on Impossible People, because I think the book deserves better than that.
Here’s the cautionary tale:
I was a big fan of Wertz. I gave her other books good reviews, probably of the kind she would appreciate. I talked up her books often on a podcast I do for work. My recommendation got Tenements, Towers, and Trash on the (digital) shelf in my local library. Really!
Wertz was on my list of “I’ll read whatever they do” authors, and that’s not a long list.
And now…I will probably pass.
I don’t think I will pick up another book, because I think that reading one will just remind me of all this business.
I’ve only had a couple exchanges with authors on Goodreads in the past. Most of them have been positive, most likely because authors choose to interact with people who review their work positively.
In the one other instance I can remember, where I gave a book a review I would call tough but fair, the author commented, and…I avoid that dude like the plague.
It’s 2023, I haven’t flown since 2019, haven’t eaten indoors at a restaurant, haven’t been to a concert since the pandemic started. I’m the only person in my office who wears a mask. When I say that I avoid an author like plague, it means something. I am pretty dedicated to avoiding plague.
Let me be clear: I’m not a victim here. I’m totally fine. I’m not threatening authors with “The Mighty Power of Fandom” or whatever.
This is the naked fact, take from it what you like:
If there’s another Julia Wertz book on the shelf at my library, it won’t be because I recommended it.
The last thing here, I am including the review below. This is because…well, I want people, who want to decide for themselves, to be able to look at the review, the update, this whole exchange, and I want people to be able to decide for themselves how they feel about it.
I’m not trying to control the narrative by taking down a heinous review and pretending like it was benign.
Okay, that’s all. Below is the review.
UPDATED REVIEW:
Julia Wertz tweeted out this review, and a bunch of people called me an asshole for, I guess, not spending the time/space to talk about this book the way she/they would have preferred?
As most of you know, this is not the first time I’ve been chastised for such behavior on Goodreads, and it won’t be the last.
Hi, Julia Wertz, if you read this, big fan. Well, now it’s a little weird. I still really like your work, though, and am looking forward to your urban exploration book. I feel a little weird about stumbling across your tweet, and it made me feel pretty terrible.
I meant no disrespect to your book by posting what I did below, and I get it, to put a bunch of work into something and then feel like a reader dismissed it is probably not the best feeling.
This is just kind of how I use Goodreads. I screw around on Goodreads, which does occasionally upset people.
The thing is, I’m nowhere near a professional reviewer, nobody pays me to read or share my thoughts about specific books, and I end up just sort of typing out whatever thoughts I come across while reviewing a book, sort of a reading diary that I keep online. Some people seem to enjoy it on occasion, many others hate it with a passion.
I think the reviews of some of your other books that I’ve done might be more to your liking:
Drinking at the Movies
Tenements, Towers, and Trash
I also have talked up your books in my work life in a library, adding them to lists, and in the past on a podcast I do for work, including this last episode where I recommended new books to replace classics, in this case, Towers, Tenements, and Trash in place of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which directly resulted in my local library purchasing the title.
While I see your point on this particular post, I have been a Julia Wertz backer. I do appreciate your work and have made efforts to turn other people onto it as well.
Mostly, I’m typing this to say that I’m an unserious goofball who writes unserious, goofballish things that aren’t meant to reflect on the books they appear under. I mean no disrespect to you or your work.
My post was stupid and pointless because I’m stupid pointless, not because your book is stupid and pointless.
For the rest of you: I use Goodreads as basically a blog because…I can?
There’s no shortage of places to find book reviews, so I don’t think I’m tearing down society by doing things this way. While I don’t suppose my “review” of Impossible People will turn people onto it, I don’t think it’ll turn anyone away from it, either. It’s kind of a no-impact post about a book that already seems to be quite popular. There’s no “Peter Bump” that comes from me giving a glowing review, and there’s no “Peter Slump” that comes when I don’t care for a book.
Lots of folks feel like I’m doing Goodreads wrong because I often type about something other than the book, and, eh, that’s fine with me because this is ultimately a review platform owned and operated by Amazon that will eventually be swallowed by the internet due to its lack of profitability.
It’s futile, totally. But most times, people don’t accuse me of being evil or hateful. Just stupid.
Stupid I can live with. I’ve been called stupid many times, many ways.
To address some of your specific concerns:
liz prince’s blue checkmark aka @comicnrrd”
The post screams “tell me you have no friends without telling me you have no friends”
I tell everyone who listens that I have no friends. This is probably a big part of why I have no friends, it’s hard to make friends while complaining about how few friends one has. But I can’t help it, it’s my THING.
The Ghost Of @Jason_Farrell
creepy weirdo. Either it’s an intentional schtick or they just are, which amounts to much the same thing.
I’m not entirely sure what’s creepy about the post, but I guess part of being a true creepy weirdo is having no idea that you’re a creepy weirdo, so that answers your question “creepy weirdo or schtick.”
Matthew S. Bernier @MatthewSBernier
I want to go on a deep sea fishing cruise, catch a really big fucking haddock, bury it in the yard for three days, and then hit this guy in the face with it.
Having been hit with all sorts of fish because of Goodreads posts I’ve written, which is a completely reasonable response, I can tell you that a store-bought halibut is the way to go. Being a nice, flat fish, it makes a very satisfying slappy sound when I’m hit with one. No need to get all sunburned and exhausted over a Goodreads thing.
~
Original Post:
No stars because I think that doesn’t count in the Goodreads ratings system as a zero, and that’s kind of how I roll on books about dead kids, recovery, etc. When someone writes a book about a huge personal THING, I kinda try and leave off a rating because, well, I think it’d be shitty to pour your heart out about something like that and some dweeb like me is all: “Um, it was okay, could’ve used more angst and a deeper rock bottom.”
I HAVE rated stuff like that before, and I will again, but as long as there are no stars, it’s safe to assume it’s a 3 or more, okay?
When is Goodreads going to give me the option to give vague ratings? Ballparks?
I’m a Julia Wertz fan across the board, this book is no exception, and I kind of can’t believe Wertz, Lisa Hanawalt, and Kate Beaton all worked in the same office space for a minute (alongside a few others who are very talented, I’m just not familiar because I’m not cool).
Looking at those three artists and their wikipedia pages, it’s hard to pick who has the worst wikipedia photo.
I don’t know who selects wikipedia photos, but they’re really bad at it.
Now, the three artists profiled here don’t have AWFUL photos, and it’s not about the artists’ looks. The photos just seem…odd.
Kate Beaton is probably the most unscathed, her photo looks a little blown out in terms of exposure, but other than that, I feel like if I saw Kate Beaton walking around somewhere, I might recognize her. It also looks like a picture where the person in the picture KNEW they were being in a picture, which is more than I can say for many a wikipedia photo.
Lisa Hanawalt’s looks like it was taken from 4,000 feet away while she’s speaking at a convention. Her expression is interesting, it’s hard to tell if she’s pissed, about to laugh, or…something? I’m pretty sure she’s wearing a hat that says the words “cock fighting” while also depicting cock fighting. This last detail doesn’t seem out of character for her, based on her books(?) She definitely did not know she was being photographed, in that moment, for the picture that would go on Wikipedia. Again, though I feel like it’s a bit odd, it looks like the person, kind of, far as I can tell (I’ve never met Lisa Hanawalt, so it’s a bit of guesswork).
Julia Wertz’s photo is oddly-sized, and it’s taken while she’s reading on stage, complete with total blur and blown out lighting. If you found 5 people of similar size, white ladies with brown hair of a similar style, it’d be hard to pick Wertz out of a lineup using this photo.
It’s not like I have a problem with it, it just makes me wonder what Wikipedia photos are for…
If the idea is to be able to identify the person, Wertz’s is the worst of the three.
Maybe identification isn’t the point, but then…why a photo at all? When it comes to something like, I don’t know, a solenoid, sure, give me a photo so I might have some idea what the fuck that is (not really, but I can try). But a person?
It kind of just struck me that this might have been interpreted as a women being evaluated for their looks thing, and that’s not it at all.
I clicked around after looking up these creators, as one does, and found Raphael Bob-Waksberg. His photo is of him at a panel, wearing a mask, with his head turned sideways. There is no way, anyone, anywhere, would be able to identify him, and I would also pose that most people who knew him probably would not be able to identify him from the photo either.
And yet, he’s appeared in MANY photos on big news outlets, so the cat is out of the bag as far as protecting his identity or something.
It feels like Wikipedia is like a yearbook of famous people, but not the part of the yearbook where everyone posed for a picture, the part of the yearbook with just casual pictures, probably snapped by teenagers in photo class, then badly cut up and pasted into a collage (this CAN’T be happening in schools anymore, right? In 2023?).
But, like, why does Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard, who died before 1900, have a better pic than people who are alive and working in the era of smartphone cameras?
How did this come to be real life?