There's a difference between evaluating a book for what it actually is vs. what you think it should have been.

It's worthwhile to ask ourselves sometimes: am I trying to connect with the author's story or am I trying to connect to a story that I want but may not even be there?

I don't really care how you write these reviews, but, GAH. I find these 'this book should have been XYZ' reviews really frustrating and unhelpful.

Especially because I see these reviews a lot with marginalised books.

I feel like it stems from this unfair expectation that marginalised stories are expected to 'give' more. Give, like teach, resonate, etc.

And these expectations to 'give' are so unfair because they're more indicative of what you want as a reader, not the book itself???

I think it's unfair when we impose our expectations of what the story should've been without considering what the book actually *was*.

By expectations, I don't mean 'I wish it was a better sequel!'. Rather, I mean, 'I thought this book was about trauma but it wasn't so 2 stars.'

I have so many thoughts on this (and I'm cognizant that some reviewers review to inform while others review for themselves!) but have ZERO brain cells to express my thoughts, so I'll do what I do best: go to bed and hopefully write a blog post about my feelings on this.