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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think writer Ben Hatch shouldn't have been so rude?

60 replies

Whatsnewwithyou · 09/05/2015 13:35

What do you make of this?

www.amazon.co.uk/review/R2MDKDDGYM55DY/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

While I'm not sure his book is sexist, I think reviewer has a right to her opinion.

OP posts:

Original poster

Whatsnewwithyou · 09/05/2015 20:36

I quite agree, Velvet. And I wonder how his twitter followers reacted? Did anyone stick up for the reviewer? I'd imagine a lot of people unfollowed him after this.

OP posts:

Crocodopolis · 09/05/2015 20:57

Neither person covers themselves in glory. However, I respect Hatch for apologising.

Original poster

Whatsnewwithyou · 09/05/2015 22:27

To be fair, she apologised too. Why don't you think she covered herself in glory? I think he should have apologised on twitter - after all he took it there.

OP posts:

Fatmomma99 · 09/05/2015 23:15

PuppyMonkey - I think you defended yourself admirably. You have my utter respect. Go YOu!

Original poster

Whatsnewwithyou · 10/05/2015 09:06

Blimey - is PuppyMonkey the floss lady? What makes you think that, Fatmomma?

OP posts:

JADS · 10/05/2015 09:21

YANBU. Hatch is a tool and his books are dreadful and filled with cliques. This makes him look really petty because he is! The apology came too late.

The amazon user's name was pretty bad though.

PuppyMonkey · 10/05/2015 09:43

Ha ha not guilty

Original poster

Whatsnewwithyou · 10/05/2015 16:02

Sorry I unfairly accused you, PM :-).

OP posts:

Osmiornica · 10/05/2015 16:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

Whatsnewwithyou · 11/05/2015 10:41

Look out, Osmiornica, or you'll be next on his hit list!

OP posts:

Fatmomma99 · 11/05/2015 23:40

Sorry PuppyMonkey. When you said he followed you on twitter I added 2 and 2 and got 5.... I assumed he'd followed you in a trolling way because you WERE floss lady.

You should have kept quiet though and felt the love. Given the postings on this thread, we'd have all worshiped you!

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 12/05/2015 12:12

'You should have kept quiet though and felt the love. Given the postings on this thread, we'd have all worshiped you!'

Hmm, not so sure about that. I don't think leaving one star reviews of books you haven't read is particularly clever or brave. (I'm assuming she didn't read beyond the first bit that she objects to.)

As a reader you're entitled to your opinion, and just like any other job where accepting anonymous feedback is part of the deal, writers do have to just suck it up. (And I'm not someone who argues that you shouldn't review books you haven't finished.) But the reality is that writers are human and reading bad reviews is HARD. With internet postings in general, it has often been said that it's all too easy to forget that there's another person at the other end, reading the words you type into the ether. I think this is just as true with reviews as with any other kind of internet posting, and the people I have the most respect for are the ones who manage to make their point without being unkind or unfair.

Obviously Ben Hatch embarrassed himself massively by the idiotic way he handled this, and he comes out of it all looking a lot worse than the reviewer, but honestly, slagging off a book is a lot easier than writing one...

MNpostingbot · 12/05/2015 12:41

I'm going against it here.

His response was over the top, but her review was rather pathetic as well. If a writer can't quote his own wife as saying she loves shoes and he wouldn't understand as he's not a girl without being accused of sexism then feminism has lost its way and needs to learn how to better pick its battles.

Pagwatch · 12/05/2015 12:55

However she reviewed it, checking her history on Amazon to sneer at it goes beyond defending yourself. It's weird and childish.

Nothing she said did anything to justify his behaving like a tantruming bully.

And posting it on to his massive Twitter following was worse.

Wanker.

MitzyLeFrouf · 12/05/2015 13:06

I'm sure reading withering reviews of your book can be annoying and soul destroying. But them's the breaks quite frankly. You can shout loudly at the screen (advised) or you can take the reviewers to task.

But if you are going to go down this route please make it brief, pithy, and witty. Do not follow Mr Hatch's example. He just looks like an arse.

I'd never heard of him before but now when I hear this name I'll think 'Oh he's that guy who made a tit of himself on Amazon'. Much like if I see the name Orlando Figes I think 'Oh he's the historian who wrote scathing reviews of his rivals' work and got found out'.

Reminds me of the ancient Latin phrase 'Writer caveat being an Amazon asshat'.

Pagwatch · 12/05/2015 15:01

'Writer caveat being an Amazon asshat'.

oddfodd · 12/05/2015 16:22

I know him and his wife. They're really nice people. :)

NadiaWadia · 12/05/2015 16:30

Agree with MNposting. I actually remember liking this book. Ok, it's not 'War and Peace' but I found it laugh-out-loud funny in places, and really touching in other places. Better than a lot of the stuff that gets published (especially on Kindle).

I have a feeling the reviewer might be on this thread, and sorry but your 'review' was not in fact a review but a pointless piece of carping (OK, so his wife likes shoes, mentioning the fact doesn't make him a sexist). I do understand you can write what you like on Amazon. Although Ben Hatch was understandably irritated, if was daft of him to engage with you in the way that he did. Probably better if writers don't look at their Amazon reviews!

JohnFarleysRuskin · 12/05/2015 17:16

He comes across as a complete arse. Who does that?

My first amazon review said 'great story but where was it set?' And proceeded to go on and on about lack of setting. Did I snap back about their poor spelling and excessive exclamation marks? No I did not. Dignified silence is the only way. (And getting your mates to post 5 star reviews of course!)

Man, he was a twat, I struggle to believe someone nice would do that, certainly it was unprofessional too.

Original poster

Whatsnewwithyou · 12/05/2015 19:24

I have a hard time believing this guy and his wife are nice people. They're probably affable, sure, and able to appear to be nice. Hatch's father was the head of BBC radio so he grew up learning to present himself in a certain way to the public. Scratch the surface by annoying him even slightly, and a quite nasty character appears.

In his book he and his wife are awful to hotel and restaurant owners, threatening them with bad reviews if they don't do what he wants. Ironic, really. So much privledge, and still he thinks the world owes him.

OP posts:

FuckingLiability · 12/05/2015 20:48

Well, you might not agree with the way he responded, or the fact that he responded at all. But it's a bit of a leap to decide that both he and his wife must be nasty, awful and entitled based on an anecdote in the book (which, if it's the same one I'm thinking of, was hardly unreasonable) and the fact his father was head of BBC Radio.

tyto · 12/05/2015 21:00

'I don't think leaving one star reviews of books you haven't read is particularly clever or brave. (I'm assuming she didn't read beyond the first bit that she objects to.)'

If I buy a book but don't enjoy it, then I'm entitled to say why I didn't like it in my review surely?

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 12/05/2015 21:07

Eh? If you read my post, I specifically said I don't think you shouldn't review books you haven't finished. I also said I don't think it's particularly clever or brave - which was in response to the poster saying we'd have all worshipped a previous poster if she'd been the author of that review.

Original poster

Whatsnewwithyou · 13/05/2015 07:09

FuckingLiability, you could be right, but I based my statement on his response to this review plus a number of other reviewers who said that the entire topic of the book is his going around getting stuff for free.

When a busy restaurant refuses to heat up food for his kids (that he didn't even buy there, and they aren't eating there), he threatens them with a bad review if they don't do it. If someone came onto mumsnet and said they had done that they would be absolutely slaughtered!

As for the shoes, I don't know. I said in my original post that I don't think it's necessarily sexist. At the same time, we wouldn't expect to read cliched descriptions of Black people, Spanish people (such as Manuel from Fawlty Towers) or other groups nowadays. And if we did then "it was based on a real person" isn't a great excuse.

OP posts:

PeachyPants · 13/05/2015 07:14

That's hilarious, what a twat he is, I'm cringing for him.

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