[REDACTED]: A Brief Hate Affair

There is a special joy in finding someone who hates a book as much as you do.  But not just any hate, and not just any book.  There are plenty of books you may not like: books that fail to deliver on their explicit premise or implicit promise, books with middles that sag like the floor of a teardown, books with underwritten or overworked prose, books that strain credulity, books that could stand to strain credulity a bit more, books that are too long, books with bad covers, books that just aren’t very good.  The world is full of books you may not like, and it is not hard to be generous about them, especially as a writer—because, as well you should know, books are incredibly hard to write, and even harder to write well.  A genuinely good book is something of a