“I’m confused. Not so much by the book but more as to why there are so many reviews of the book.
Not to mention one that’s hidden because it contains spoilers.
People, let’s calm down with the use of “spoiler alerts” on everything. There’s a difference between a spoiler and saying something that happens in the book.
If you’ll indulge me for a second, this book lets you know that zombies hate roving bands of ninja. Okay, so that’s a thing that happens in the book. But we already knew that zombies hate stuff based on the title. A roving band of ninja could be considered stuff, therefore I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect something along those lines might show up.
Further, I don’t really know how much one can spoil a book that takes less then 1 minute to finish and, for the most part, does not have an important order to it.
We need some sort of “spoiler alert” Geneva Convention here. When it’s necessary, when it’s cute, and when it’s just not appropriate.
Necessary:
I’d say it’s necessary whenever you’re going to explain something that will cause 10% or more of something to become pointless. So if a movie is 250 minutes long, don’t tell me anything that will ruin the first 25 minutes. Also, as an added caveat, if something spoils greater than 10% of the QUALITY of something, it may warrant a spoiler alert. If you only ruin 10 minutes of a movie for me, but it’s by far the BEST 10 minutes, then we have a problem.
Cute:
I’d say that you’ll have to go with your gut on this one, but basically, the more obvious something is, the cuter it is to warn with “spoiler alert” ahead of time. Or, the more unnecessary. For example, “I went to work. Spoiler alert: it was boring.” Also, completely nonsensical use is encouraged when being cute. For example, when reading a highway sign pointing out that your destination is 35 miles away, feel free to berate the government for spoiling the mystery for you.
Not Appropriate:
Now, I understand that most of you are trying not to spoil stuff. Which I appreciate. But I’ll safeguard myself. If you start telling me about Dark Knight Rises, I’ll stop you and say, “I don’t want to know ANYTHING.” Also not cool is when you say spoiler alert before talking about something ten years old. So just as a blanket warning, I WILL dive into talking about an episode of Roseanne without warning you that I may spoil it. But “spoil” here meaning “cost you a very low level of enjoyment of one episode of a show from a decade ago.” And finally, not appropriate to use this phrase orally in a serious way. In writing, it makes sense because the reader can’t stop you, slow you down, or change the conversation. It’s just out there, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent spoilage other than letting them know it’s there and letting them make a decision about whether they want to read on. In speech, rather than saying, “I’m about to spoil something for you” it’s a hell of a lot more polite to ASK.”