On recent events and bullying

Disclaimer: This post is not meant to attack anyone. I am only expressing my opinions and do not wish to offend anyone. For that reason, I will not be name-dropping anyone nor will I be making the use of screen shots. 

In the light of recent events I feel the need to write a post describing how I feel towards what went down. If only to give me the closure I need so that I stop wasting my time and energy raging towards what happened. 

For those of you who may be wondering what it is that some of us are talking about, Khanh over at The Book Nookery did a wonderful post on this which you can read here. 

A general summary of what happened was that a person X (which I will refer to them in my post for the sake of privacy and what not), asked a whole bunch of people to give them their eArcs. Most of you might know that that is illegal and if not, Jon over at Scott Reads It wrote a wonderful post on that which you can read here.

Person X has been asking people to send them eARCs for a long time now and people have asked her to stop not once, not twice, not thrice but MULTIPLE times. Yet she fails to learn her lesson and continues to ask people for eARCs knowing that what she is doing is illegal. She even went as far as to ask an author (who I will also not be naming) for copies of their books. Now, that is not illegal but it is completely unethical and I was SHOCKED to say that least when I heard about that. There are some lines that should most definitely not be crossed. 

Back to the point, what occurred is what certain people described as a 'blow-up', which I can tell you, it most definitely was not. I may not have been actively involved in what actually went down but I was actively following the conversation and was constantly talking to my friend who was involved. My friend, deciding that she had had enough of this person constantly pestering people for eARCs, free copies of books and even asking a mutual friend for a kindle, she decided to politely message the person telling them that it needed to stop. Person X decided to announce this to the whole world and made a status (on goodreads) that seemed to beg for pity instead of well apologizing for what happened. Person X weaved a tale of guilt while never apologizing and made out the bloggers who had asked her to stop be be the villains and themselves to be the poor victim of their rage. This was not the case and I can guarantee you that this person showed no remorse. If you're interested, Debby over at Snuggly Oranges has the screen shots of what went down available on request. 

What really angers me the most is that what went down was labelled as bullying and a case of mob mentality going so far to describe it as a witch hunt. NOT COOL.

Bullying is defined (by wikipedia) as the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively impose domination over others.

I find it EXTREMELY offensive that this would be labelled a case of bullying. I myself may not have been involved but when half-truths of what went down started popping up, I decided it was time for me to speak up. When I did, it was implied that I might have been bullying person X by my actions. For one I wasn't even involved in the original thing, I was commenting as a by-stander who was passively involved and two I AM OFFENDED. As someone who has been bullied, I'd never wish it on anyone. Bullying has ruined my life. I suffer from low self-esteem, social anxiety and constantly think that everyone hates me and I am not sure I am ever going to completely go back to 'normal'.  I am too scared to speak up in most cases but I will no longer shut the hell up. I am enraged that someone might imply that any of us would go out of our way to ruin someone's life. 

What happened was not bullying and if you think that you might need to rethink what bullying is. What happened was that people were fed up of a person manipulating them for eARCs and continuing to pursue an illegal activity after being told countless amount of times that what they were asking for was wrong. If Person X had listened to us, they might have been safe from law suits that could happen in the future.

But Person X has paid no heed to anything that went down going so far as to ask two more people (that we know of) for eARCs AFTER the incident took place. 

Should no one have stood up to this person telling them that they needed to stop? Should we all just have remained silent while watching this person continue to ask people for eARCs and committing piracy?

Is speaking up going to be labelled as bullying and witch hunting? Is this what we've come to?

I am fed up of this. It constantly enrages me that people think that there is no point in speaking up and that it is better to let it be. I am pissed that we would be labelled bullies for expressing our opinion and seen as attacking an 'innocent party' when nothing of the sort happened. I am really just fed up at the moment and I am not in the mood to do anything else. This has sapped the energy out of me and you know what? I've got better things to do. I've said my part and it's up to everyone else to decide how they felt. It's better if I let it go than rage. 

Speechless by Hannah Harrington

Title: Speechless
Author: Hannah Harrington
Publisher: Harlequin
Date Published: August 28, 2012
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

Everyone knows that Chelsea Knot can’t keep a secret

Until now. Because the last secret she shared turned her into a social outcast—and nearly got someone killed.

Now Chelsea has taken a vow of silence—to learn to keep her mouth shut, and to stop hurting anyone else. And if she thinks keeping secrets is hard, not speaking up when she’s ignored, ridiculed and even attacked is worse.

But there’s strength in silence, and in the new friends who are, shockingly, coming her way—people she never noticed before; a boy she might even fall for. If only her new friends can forgive what she’s done. If only she can forgive herself.

“Ms. Davidson said I couldn’t shut out the world, but my question is, why can’t I do just that? It’s what the world wants. It’s the only way to keep myself out of trouble”.

I read Saving June a while ago and after finishing it, I was convinced I had to read Speechless as well. It took me a while to get around to it but I am so glad I read it. I think it was even better, not because it had a better writing style or better characters, but because it wasn’t a tragedy. Like I mentioned in the review to Saving June, I don’t do tragedies. So giving Saving June a 4 meant that it was pretty amazing. It took me a while to get around to this though because I wasn’t like “OMG I WANT TO READ IT RIGHT NOW”, more like “Hmm, I definitely need to read this at some point”, so when I saw it on Net Galley, I requested it. I am kind of disappointed I didn’t read it earlier. It is so awesome. This is the kind of contemporary/realistic fiction I am on the lookout for, something that completely blows my mind away.

The characters in this book are by no means perfect, but that’s the appeal of them. Their imperfectness is WHAT makes them perfect.

Chelsea cannot keep a secret to save her life, she gossips, spreads rumors, is friends with the most popular girl. But after spilling a secret that almost costs someone their life, she decides to take a vow of silence. People blame her for ratting their friends out, they say horrible things to her but she still says silent. When I say silent, she doesn’t speak. Not even to her parents. She has to write down stuff she has to say. But the whole staying silent thing turns over a new leaf for her, she becomes close to a whole new group of people she wouldn’t have considered looking at twice.

When I started reading this book, I was kind of scared, I mean we know a bad thing is going to happen, it’s the anticipation for that event that kind of scared me. But after that, the book was an absolutely fun read. When you read the summary you think it’s going to be serious and somewhat depressing. It isn’t, not if you have a main character like Chelsea. Chelsea is a rather sarcastic character and even though she isn’t talking it doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her own opinions. This book could have been depressing and even though it’s about self-discovery, Chelsea’s voice makes it light.

“Natalie might think I’m just Kristen’s little minion, but I’m not. I don’t know exactly what I am, but I am more than that. I know that much.”

As I’ve mentioned this book IS about self-discovery. After the “incident” she has no friends. Her ex friends turned against her and everyone else hated her. So she doesn’t have anyone to turn to. She is confused and lost without her best friend, because she doesn’t know who to be without her anymore, Kristen played such a huge part in Chelsea’s life, making decisions for her, etc.

Chelsea isn’t someone who as soon as she becomes “unpopular” realizes that all her friends sucked. She used to be one of them, she liked it. She liked the attention, she liked being more than average. Maybe I am reading too much into this but I think it was because she didn’t feel all that special, she wasn’t good at much and even though she loves fashion designing, she never finished her projects. The attention made her feel like she was special so she liked it. In real life people don’t suddenly change her mind, she questioned if she made the right choice all the time because she missed her life a lot but little by little, she started to realize how horrible a person she used to be.

These things make her relatable because we as human beings are by no means perfect, it takes a lot of courage to speak up and we all crave human attention, if speaking up is going to make us a target, we probably won’t do it because becoming a target of the popular crowd, that’s pretty bad. She is a rather realistic character and her voice makes it a lot easier to understand her and of course relate to her.

This book like Saving June has great relationships. I prefer the ones in this book actually. Her relationship with her parents is great. They aren’t bad parents and they are always trying to help her, she doesn’t always see that but she doesn’t hate them or ignore them or say bad things about them. She loves them even though she thinks they can be smothering at times. She turns to her father every time she and her mother have an argument. The relationship she shares with her parents is so realistic.

Asha, the friend/best friend, is a great character. Such a bubbly and fun person, someone who tries to see the good in people. She is a grade behind her but when everyone turns against Chelsea, Asha sees that she is lonely and knowing what it feels like to be lonely, she goes up and decides to strike a friendship with Chelsea. They by no means hit off, their friendship is a somewhat slow process. Chelsea is never mean to her though, never tries to tell her off. She knows she doesn’t want to be lonely and even her pride cannot get in the way of reaching out to someone who is willing to be there. I loved their friendship.

Sam. Oh my god. Sam like Jake (from Saving June) was absolutely great. He is a bit geeky but also a nice guy. He has his little flaws and it takes him time for him to warm up to her but their relationship is so cute. It develops slowly. She is vary of him at first because he was best friends with the guy who almost died, she thinks that he is going to be mean to her and try to get back at her like everyone else. He doesn’t, he is polite but that doesn’t mean he likes her. They have to work together on an art project so they slowly become friends and then best friends (this all happens without Chelsea talking) and then….they become something more (I sound so cliché).

There are so many lessons to be learned from this book, the main one being it’s okay to make mistakes as long as you accept them for what they are. Cut yourself some slack occasionally.

After reading two of her books, it’s safe to say I am a huge Hannah Harrington fan and I will be on the lookout for more of her books.