Why Would You Recommend That To Me?

Recently a fellow coworker recommended Christopher Moore to me when she spied me reading "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown" by Holly Black, and upon gushing and raving about him and the books that he has written she promised to bring me in her copy to borrow and read. I tried to gently evade her offer by telling her the simple truth that I already have so many books on my to read list that I wouldn't know when I would be able to get around to actually reading it. She assured me that it wouldn't be a problem and that I could keep it for as long as I wanted to. Oh goody ... Having never heard of Christopher Moore previously to this encounter I looked him up on Goodreads when I got home. Hmmm, not really my tastes going off of the descriptions given. I was secretly relieved when she never brought the book in, and made it a point to never remind her. Weeks went by and then out of the blue she brought it in the other day. Oh crap on a cracker. I read a couple of pages tonight and it didn't even register as a finished book ... it was that bad. The writing was all over the place and I can't even begin to keep track of how many swear words were contained in those few pages that I did read, not to mention the vulgarness of it all. I'm not going to say all of this to my coworker, but I am truly at a loss in how I am going to explain that I will not be reading her book. I may just have to pretend that I read it and that it just wasn't really attuned to my tastes ... because she owns the entire collection and I can't keep pretending to read all of them! It's utter madness, where would it ever end?!

This got me thinking about book recommendations in general. When someone recommends a book to me I hesitate to read it based solely on their recommendation alone because not everyone's taste in books coexist, and what they find to be a thrilling read may just end up on my most hated list. However I will read books through book reviews when the synopsis catches my attention, which in a way is a book recommendation. Basically I just don't like being told what to do. I am a rebel, I go against the grain.

And is our opinion of the book recommender forever tarnished afterwards when it is discovered that their absolute favorite book is crap? Yes, my reader respect has been severely diminished, and all future book recommendations will be speedily disregarded henceforth.