Per a recent read, I& #39;m ruminating over where social commentary in a book starts and ends.

...mostly where it ends.

When past a certain depth, is commentary in a book a thing that needs to be wholly committed to? And how fair is it to criticise a book for where it stops?
Say you focus heavily on one social talking point in your books. Something like wealth inequality. You examine it, have stand-ins.

Unrelated (in your mind), you have your low-income character& #39;s best friend betray him to become the antagonist.

...have you undercut your point?
In the above example, via subtext in your book you have set up the designers of a biased system as the antagonists.

To then have a lower-class "big bad" would, on some level, seem contrary to that message.

But what if that big bad& #39;s existence fits the context of the story?
Balancing the needs of a story versus it& #39;s social commentary seems something incredibly difficult to get right.

Unpicking that from a reviewer& #39;s perspective, where individual understanding of intended commentary is WILDLY subjective, often seems like it& #39;s based on speculation.
And look, we all know how a certain kind of "unintended commentary" can lead to call-outs and general shit shows on Twitter. Not my place to talk on how this can tie into harmful representation.
I& #39;m just trying to wrap my head around where I stand on those moments where it& #39;s like...

An author has stated X, which implies Y, which would weaken the book.

To what extent is Y born from my own imagination and not the writers? And when can that lead to fair critique?
I& #39;m aware that the answer is probably, predictably, "it depends".

But frustrating as that is, it& #39;s still something I want to think about to be a fairer and more effective reviewer. For as much as that& #39;s worth.
Would be interested to see how anyone else has dealt with these kind of thoughts for specific books!

Even if only to know I& #39;m not the only one sad enough to want to dedicate time to talking about them on the internet https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😅" title="Lächelndes Gesicht mit offenem Mund und Angstschweiß" aria-label="Emoji: Lächelndes Gesicht mit offenem Mund und Angstschweiß">
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