Archive for February, 2013


Anti-troll Bandwagon

Filed Under: GR Bully, GR Bully Culture by Johnny Be Good — 16 Comments
February 28, 2013

For our post today, we wanted to draw attention to Dougie’s comment on our post The Bullies Get Played :

LOL, nice to see I get a mention, all be it in a context that is totally wrong. Not that anyone on Amazon was actually interested in the facts of what happened with Matthew Fox.

But then again, they never are.

Keep up the good work guys. More and more people are finally realising what’s been going on and coming on board the anti-Troll bandwagon.

Dougie is right when he says that the public is wising up to the bullies and their notorious behavior.  Why do we want to share this?  Because we’ve been getting more and more messages like this one:

HowLong

She says, “How long has it been now?”  Meaning, how long has it been now that she has been silent, has left them alone, and is still being targeted and harassed.  How long?  For this particular author, about a year and a half, almost two years, in fact.  This author and many others believed, because they were told by either their editors, or agents, or publishers, that if they ignored the bullies, then they would go away and leave them alone.  Here’s the truth.  It doesn’t matter if you ignore them or disappear or stop speaking out against them, they will never stop harassing you or attacking your books.  Why?  Because they live and love to harass other people.

We’re not saying that we recommend getting into it directly with them.  No.  Our advice on our Do’s and Don’t’s page, for those who are targeted is to NOT engage with them at all and we mean that.  As Athena said, you can’t negotiate with terrorists.

So, you’re probably wondering, what then do you do?  Simple.  Ignore them and raise awareness of their behavior by sharing it with others.  You can do this privately through email or PMs or you can start an anonymous blog or even share our blog with others.  The more you pass around the information to others, the more the public will become aware of what is happening so that when someone is targeted, people will know that it’s bullies causing the problem and not the victim.  This in turn will minimize the impact they have on their victims and eliminate the damage they cause.

Everyone got it?  Good.

Now, moving on…

There are a couple issues that Athena wants me to clear up for our readers.  One of them is that in no case have we ever or would ever say that shelving a book as a personal attack on an author is okay.  Any attack on an author is decidedly NOT okay.

Got that, bullies?  The fact that you think it’s okay is an unfortunate and moronic notion instilled in you by Patrick Brown and his band of moderators who allow this kind of crap on GR.

Another matter Athena asked me to clear up is our criteria for adding people to our BBG list.  We created this list to warn others of the trolls they need to avoid when they are logged into Goodreads.  We place someone on our list when we find or are given proof that they have participated in a bully attack on someone else, not because we just feel like adding them or because they speak out against us.

For example, here is a screenshot of  celebrating the fact that she made our BBG list and KarlynP making one of her usual asinine, and totally erroneous, statements:

katiebabs

Well, Katie, we’re glad you’re excited about it, but unfortunately, you’re not a Badly Behaving Goodreads reviewer because to say that would imply that you’re a reviewer, which you’re not.  Not according to the standards of your bully friends and not according to ours.  According to the bullies, authors cannot be reviewers and as you’re an author, you cannot therefore be a real reviewer.  According to us, you’re a BBG.  Got that?  A BBG, which stands for Badly Behaving Goodreader (not Badly Behaving Goodreads reviewer.)  And no one with any kind of integrity takes BBGs seriously.  Why?  Simple.  Because of your behavior.

In fact, the BBGs on our list are well known for getting booted off of other sites.  Ours for one.  Digital Book World for another.  And the Passive Voice.

In fact, here is a screenshot of a commenter on TPV who was responding to a nasty comment Katie left (as author KT Grant) :

Dawn

Unfortunately for Katie, Dawn knew that KT Grant was katiebabs.  If you go to the link, you will see that Katie’s comment is no longer there.  Why?  Because Passive Guy removed it and booted her off of his site.  If there is one thing that can be said about PG, it’s that he doesn’t put up with bully wank.  Good for you, PG!

So, Katie, why have we placed you on our list?  Well, not because of the fallacious argument made by KarlynP.  We do not list people as BBG because they speak out against us.  We list people who have been proven to bully others in the past.  In your case, Katie, we were contacted by another author, an author who by the way is infinitely more talented and more successful than you and who sent us screenshots of a bully attack on her in which you not only participated, but led (we are not at liberty publish the screenshots or the author’s name per her request.)  So you see, Katie, this is why you are on our list.  Got it?  And it doesn’t surprise us that you would assault an author who is more talented and more successful than you.  This seems to be the norm with BBG who are authors.

To end our post, we wanted to let everyone know that Athena checked back on Eve Thomas and she said she is doing well.  She asked us to share this message from her blog with our readers (the facebook page is ):

Worldwide Peaceful Meeting Day

Eve Thomas

27/02/2013 22:57:00

Hi Everyone,

I have a dream, a peaceful day when people unite around the world to make new friends but most of all to raise awareness to the many types of abuse that are sadly part of our everyday life.

As a survivor of domestic violence I want to join my tiny voice to the millions of others out there so we become #onevoice, #onevoice raising awareness to domestic violence, rape, child abuse, human trafficking, the list is endless.

Almost every day I see a new story breaking in the media, stories of historical sex abuse, victims of domestic violence, murder, rape, again the list is very sadly endless.

One in three women are affected by domestic violence, 2 women die every week, hundreds and thousands of children are living their childhoods surrounded by abuse – WHEN WILL IT STOP?  WHEN WILL THE ABUSERS STOP?

I strongly feel that education and knowledge are the key.  There are some wonderful organisations/charities and people out there, link minded people who only want to help, their sole wish to perhaps feel at peace even if it is only for a short while.

Whilst conversing with a fellow tweeter my dream suddenly seemed real and so #worldwidepeacefulmarch day was born.

My dream is for people to meet in every town, in every city, in every country of the world and join their voices to raise awareness to all types of abuse.  This could also be a very valuable opportunity to raise money for charities etc – I’m thinking something similar to Comic Relief where individuals/small groups/organisations etc organise fund raising activities and then donate the money to the charity of their choice.

THIS DREAM CAN BECOME A REALITY.  I never thought I would ever be a survivor but here I am, standing tall and shouting from the rooftops.  PLEASE JOIN ME, PLEASE HELP MY DREAM BECOME A REALITY THIS REALLY COULD BE EPIC IF WE ALL #STANDTOGETHER AS #ONEVOICE.

The date for #worldwidepeacefulday was original set as the 27th July but after consulting with the Director of FortAlice today she pointed out that this falls in the peak holiday season.  If anyone has any suggestions as to a date please get in touch, I can be reached by email or you can leave a comment below.  I am thinking the last Saturday in June as that would also give me time to put the finishing touches to the Fifty Shades Of Grey book, the book of survivors stories which I would like to release worldwide on the same day as #worldwidepeacefulmarch day.  There is still time to send in your stories, you really are a brave lot and I am sending each and everyone of you a big hug.

Stay safe and remember SURVIVORS NOT VICTIMS.

Eve x

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The Bullies Get Played

Filed Under: Goodreads by Johnny Be Good — 6 Comments
February 27, 2013

Below is a post we published on September 11, 2012, about a joke that was played on the bullies by some of our friendly Amazonians.  What’s so hilarious about it is that they all (the bullies) fell for it.  Every.  Single.  One.  Even Kat Kennedy stepped in and embarrassed herself… again.  We’re finding that she’s good at that.

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Okay, we had to tell our readers about this because it was just too funny!  Keep reading because this is hilarious!

Apparently, the Amazonians, Matthew Fish, G. Faso, and Splinker (who formed the ) played a joke on the bullies by making a sock puppet named  who in turn created the list .

And what did the bullies do?  They flooded it with authors who are part of their own bully group.  Who did they blame for making the list in the first place?  Gee, can you guess?  We’ll let the comments show you anyway:

Comments13

Comments14

Comments15

Comments16

Comments17

Comments18

Comments19

Comments20

So, let’s see.  She’s been blamed for our site, for the Goodreads Follies site, for the NSPHP site, and now this.  At this point, it’s comical: “OMG!  She’s everywhere!  Watch out!  She’s just around that corner.  She’s gonna jump out at you and go BOO!”

Finally, someone named Book left this comment, informing them of who was responsible:

Book

In case you don’t feel like going to the Amazon forum, here are the screenshots of Mahala and G. Faso’s convo on Amazon:

AmazonConvo1

AmazonConvo2

AmazonConvo3

AmazonConvo4

So… after Book left the comment, what happened?

Silence.  😀

Even Cuddleboogery fell for it:

CBsTrololo

They say:

Usually, we would ignore this and be vaguely insulted that we’re supposed to be this stupid.  BUT, something rather hilarious happened.  And it happened in the form of Goodreaders flocking to the list and adding books by authors who have been targeted for sticking up for reviewers.

Peter, can we get a translation?

PP: Of course!

Of course, we couldn’t ignore this as it was an insult to our very low collective IQ, so we sent all of our minions over to the list to add books by authors who have kissed our asses and are now part of our bully group.

Thanks, Peter!

So, Cuddleboog, the only problem is that the Amazonians knew you were going to do this.  You got played.  Joke’s on you!

Trololololololo!

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The Banning of Robin Sullivan

Filed Under: Absolute Write by Johnny Be Good — 16 Comments
February 27, 2013

In response to popular demand, the following is a post we published on September 2, 2012, about the banning of Robin Sullivan from Absolute Write.

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We’ve had several requests for a post on this subject, but we were waiting for a good example to show everyone.  “An example of what?” you ask.  An example of why it is a good idea to steer clear of Absolute Write, or at least of its water cooler.

Now, if there is any environment more toxic than GR, it’s the Absolute Write Water Cooler.  It’s a snake pit.  And not just any snake pit.  We’re talking Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark kind of snake pit.  Why is it so bad?  Its not just because of its members.  Its moderators play a big part in it, too.  Keep reading and we’ll show you what we mean.

Now before we continue, we want to show you some Alexa reviews we found here.  All of the five star reviews are legacy reviews, because once upon a time, when AW was fresh and new, it was a good place to be, but slowly over time, it became corrupt.  Many of our readers tell us that it has to do with a certain person who took over as moderator/owner, but before we get to that, here are the most recent reviews we found:

AWReviews1

AWReviews2

AWReviews3

Gosh, does this sound familiar?  Does it surprise anyone, then, that there is a HUGE overlap between AW and GR?  Not at all.

Now, to show you what we mean about this site (and what these reviews are talking about,) we’ve decided to cover the banning of Robin Sullivan for this post, which is appropriately titled, I’ve Been Banned!

Those who know Robin tell us she is a terrific lady.  She and her husband have been very successful: he as an author and she as an independent publisher.  Robin is very savvy and knowledgeable when it comes to the the publishing industry.  If you are just starting out as either a writer or a publisher, we recommend consulting her.  She is very nice to newcomers.  Her blog is here.

So what happened to her?  Well, we’ll let her tell you from her post:

I was in a conversation at Absolute Water Cooler entitled: Can I try and traditionally publish after making a kindle/e-pubbing?

The general opinion of many posting there was that you’ve shot yourself in the foot by self-publishing first as the first publication cherry had been popped and therefore the book is now “dead” as far as getting agent representation or finding another publisher.

My position was that you still can publish that work. And people are not as concerned as they once were about the first publication rights. The points I raised included:

  • As my role in acquisitions, I actually seek out self-published authors to sign with Ridan
  • Michael resold his works that were self published (and for six-figures to boot)
  • Several self-published authors from the Kindle Boards were recruited by the Trident Group for representation.
  • Noah Lukeman, a major NY publisher recruited self-publishing authors D.B. Henson and J.R. Jagger.
  • I also posted 4 recent deals on Publisher’s Marketplace for recently signed self-published works.There are actually three different posts on AW at this time on this exact subject so some of those points may have been made in other similar posts – I’ve not bothered to look back.

In any case any post by myself or Kevin McLaughlin (who had similar opinions) were dismissed indicating that there are many others on the site with years of “real” publishing experience and if they say the works are dead….they are dead. They stated over and over that this was “common knowledge” and neither produced nor were required to produce any facts or supporting documentation backing these claims.

If you read the thread, you’ll see that Robin backs up her assertions with real facts, real numbers, and real documentation (i.e. links.)  The others don’t.  They just tell them that they’re wrong because they said so.  Once she and Kevin started noticing a double standard in the discussion, what happened?  MacAllister Stone, the moderator we mentioned above, banned her with this message (Robin had the presence of mind at the time to screengrab it):

banning

In case you couldn’t read the message, here’s a close up:

EffingBaldFaceLiar

The moderator – I’ll say that again – the MODERATOR, MacAllister Stone, said:

“Just get the hell off my site. You’re relentlessly snotty, rude, and you’re a fucking bald-faced liar. I’m done with you.”

So, you see why we’re telling everyone to steer clear of this place?

Need more proof?  I know many of you don’t but we’ll give you some more, just for kicks.  In this thread, an AW member theaveng, told James MacDonald that he made a dumb comment.  Who is James MacDonald?  This guy:

JM

Now, be aware that ol’ Jimmy Boy here is tight with Mac and the other moderators.  So, when theaveng told him he made a dumb comment, how did the moderators respond?  With this:

YouWillRespectHim

Hmm… *scratches chin*  So, she says:

“James D. MacDonald is a respected writer, editor, and writing teacher is part of the publishing community. He’s also part of this community, and you will respect him and the other members of this community, or you won’t be posting here.”

Hey, Peter!  Can we get a translation of that?

Peter:  Sure!  Here ya go!

“James MacDonald is a puffed-up, self-important peacock who thinks he’s God’s gift to the literary world.  You will kiss his ass or else I will ban you and call you a fucking bald-faced liar. We decide who gets respect around here and who doesn’t. That would mean James does and you do not. So bend to our will or get the hell off our site, because difference of opinions is NOT welcome in this community. Read the sign: disagreeing = disrespecting, especially when you make a valid point!”

Thanks, Peter!

So… is he really a puffed-up, self-important peacock who thinks he’s God’s gift to the literary world?  You be the judge:

LearnToWriteWithUncleJim

Learn writing with Uncle Jim?  Uncle Jim?  Oh.  My.  God!  Jim MacDonald has told all the “newbies” he wants them to call him Uncle Jim.  This isn’t just a little bit creepy.  *shivers*

Advice to newbies, in particular, young newbies of the female persuasion: STAY AWAY from “Uncle Jim”:

BraAndPanties

This has got to be worse than “Aunty Kat.”  Listen, we’ve said this before, but we’ll say it again.  Be wary of people who talk like this.  Be wary of people who want you to call them Uncle or Aunty or who refer to themselves in the third person.  This is a sign of impending megalomania and it can’t be good.

So, Uncle Jimmy Boy, can you say megalomania?  Say it!   Go ahead.  You can do it!  You can say it!

M-E-G-A-L-O-M-A-N-I-A.

Good boy!  We knew you could do it.

And just in case you don’t know what that means, we’ve looked it up in the dictionary for you:

Megalomania: i) obsession with the exercise of power, esp. in the domination of others, ii) delusion about one’s own power or importance (typically as a symptom of manic or paranoid disorder.)

There.  Now you understand.  😀  Good!  Moving on…

So… what does he think of us?

BadSTGRB

You all got that?  We’re bad.  We’re bad.  We know it.  We know it.  *dances*

Hey, ya’all!  *waves*  Come on over to the bad side and join us!  It’s a party!  Woohoo!

He also says that what we do isn’t good for publishing (i.e. legacy publishing.)

Is that right, Jimbo?  You want to know what else isn’t good for legacy publishing?  We’ll give you a hint.  Starts with an A.  Ends with an n.  Can you guess?  And if publishing doesn’t learn how to adapt, it will die.  We’ve learned this from a wise American attorney named Clarence Darrow:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.”

So, to wrap up, here are a few pearls from Jim MacDonald about authors and reviews of their books.

AuthorsDontReadReviews

He also says:

NegativeReviewAttackInsane

After reading those, my coffee almost came out of my nose when I read this:

Corgis

But… but… I thought you said authors shouldn’t read reviews because they’re not for them and that saying a negative review is an attack on an author is insane?

Suggestion: you may want to pull your head out of your ass, there, Jimbo.  Might help you see things a little more clearly.

And this next screenshot is totally irrelevant to the subject of this post, but we thought we’d add it in because she’s an AW member.  Also we just wanted to give everyone a good laugh:

FuckingGoodWriter

A fucking good writer?  *snort*  In what universe?

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Hey STGRB, Screengrab This!

Filed Under: GR Bully Meltdown by Johnny Be Good — Leave a comment
February 27, 2013

This week we decided to have a little fun and re-pub some of the more hilarious moments of our first six months of growing pains.  The following post we published on August 19, 2012, just after The GR Bully Meltdown, Part 1 and Part 2.

Do you all remember this?  For those new to our site, enjoy!  😀

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You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that our coverage of the GR bully meltdown may have made the bullies a little bit angry.  Not sure though.  What do you think?

Pissed

And this one, can’t miss this one:

DancingBatman

Okay.  We’ll screengrab that.  Because nothing says fuck you quite like a dancing batman giving you the bird.

Oh, and here’s one from Kara, telling us to do something to ourselves that is physically impossible:

GoFYourself

Hmm… *pauses to scratch head*

Okay, now we want to show you the screenshots from our last post.  Here’s Kara in reference to Ridley’s behavior:

KaraDisappointed

We also have a couple by Blythe Harris.  Remember Blythe?  The one who curses out teen girls with Archer.  Blythe Harris, the eighth grade teacher who gives her students an F for fuck you.

ImmaturityOfSomePeople

RidleyNeedsToGrowUp

Now, I don’t think we need to explain the irony of this to anyone here.  I think our readers are smart enough to figure it out on their own.

But we have a new name!  For the site that must not be named, we sure are getting a lot of names.  Go figure.

EffingSite

She wants to see what we wrote but doesn’t want to visit our “fucking site.”  You see, this is their dilemma.  They want to boycott us but they just can’t keep themselves from looking.  It’s an addiction to drama.  They just can’t help themselves.

So, whenever you read a post on this site, just remember, these are the types of people we are dealing with.  Despite what they claim, they are not victims.

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Amazon Reviews As Attack Weapons

Filed Under: Abuse, Bully Attacks, News by Johnny Be Good — 28 Comments
February 25, 2013

Sorry all!  We’ve been a little busy lately and haven’t been able to post everything we wanted to this week.  But before we get into Amazon Reviews As Attack Weapons, we want to share with you a little piece of information.

You all remember our twitter stalker , right?  You know the one who sent us about a million crazy twitter messages while she was waiting in line for concert tickets?

Yeah, that one.

Well, we just received this screenshot from Carroll that he found on GenX’s blog.  It’s a shot Gen took of her 10 cent donation to the STGRB treasury.

GensDonation

Athena informed me that out of all the donations we’ve received so far, only one was a ten cent donation (which Athena declined) sent from a Jonathan Welling (look at the dates on both shots – January 11th):

NotificaitonOfDonation

So, it appears that Amanda Welling (aka GenX) used her husband’s paypal account to waste 10 cents.

Carroll was right.  Amanda is GenX.  Good call, Carroll!

Oh, by the way, Athena wants all the trolls to know that any donation under a dollar will automatically be declined.  We’re not going to waste our time with mentally unstable trolls who obsess over us while waiting in concert lines.  Time to get a life, girls.

Anyhow, moving on…

Our post for today is about how reviewers have been using Amazon reviews to attack books and/or the authors that write them.  And in some cases, to attack other reviews/reviewers.  Here is an exchange in one our recent blog posts, between Anon-a-bus, Another Anon, and Athena.

Anon-a-bus:

If there is something brewing here you might want to check out. A relatively unknown author in m/m romance released a book about a week ago and now has like 40 five star glowing reviews. That never happens. One person gave it a one star review and questioned the validity of the other reviews…and the honesty. Now his “fans” are beginning to rally around him. What I think is interesting is that the reviewer is getting bullied…or might be getting bullied this time. I’m not sure yet. And the overall picture any way you look at it is amazon still promotes this kind of corruption.

Another Anon:

Hmmn, maybe not bullying as such but something very close, which just reinforces what the reviewer said. There is no way all those other reviewers would know about the 1-star review, especially all at once, unless they were told or they all checked the book’s reviews daily. Who does that? There is no alert for reviews.

And Athena:

We know a ton of reviewers who are that obsessed. Wendy Darling for one. There are dozens more. Fans do check their reviews and they also check the books they’ve reviewed as well.  This is how review wars on Amazon get started all the time.

Athena is right about obsessive fans/reviewers.  As a result, it seems that Amazon reviews may be losing credibility, as Goronwy says here:

This article actually first appeared in the NYT, where it’s received almost two hundred comments. Check them out: it really looks like Amazon reviews are losing credibility, and not because of ‘badly behaving authors’

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/business/a-casualty-on-the-battlefield-of-amazons-partisan-book-reviews.html?_r=0

This was an article published on January 20, 2013 about a book written by Randall Sullivan, titled: Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson.  Apparently a group of Michael Jackson’s fans who call themselves Michael Jackson’s Rapid Response Team to Media Attacks organized a planned assault on the author and his book through the Amazon review system.  The article states:

In the biggest, most overt and most successful of these campaigns, a group of Michael Jackson fans used and to solicit negative reviews of a new biography of the singer. They bombarded Amazon with dozens of one-star takedowns, succeeded in getting several favorable notices erased and even took credit for Amazon’s briefly removing the book from sale.

“Books used to die by being ignored, but now they can be killed — and perhaps unjustly killed,” said Trevor Pinch, a Cornell sociologist who has studied Amazon reviews. “In theory, a very good book could be killed by a group of people for malicious reasons.”

The article then goes on to say:

But the book’s publisher, Grove Press, said the Amazon review system was being abused in an organized campaign. “We’re very reluctant to interfere with the free flow of discourse, but there should be transparency about people’s motivations,” said Morgan Entrekin, president of Grove/Atlantic, Grove’s parent company.

And how does Amazon respond?  Just as we thought they would:

Amazon said the fans’ reviews had not violated its guidelines but declined further comment.

What do we think?

We have addressed, over and over, this problem of people abusing the Amazon review system to attack others, a problem which has been largely ignored by Amazon.  Instead, they seem to think removing five-star reviews with no rhyme or reason is improving their review system.

What we think is that Amazon needs to change it’s book reviewing policy.  First of all, they should require that the reviewer has actually read the book, or part of it, before writing a review.  Secondly, they should also require that the review stay on topic, that is, discuss the book itself and its content.  Anything else (i.e. an attack on the author, or on another reviewer, or on another review, etc.) should be prohibited/deleted.

Book reviews should be about the book.  Period.

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From Fool to Furious

Filed Under: Goodreads, GR Bully Culture, Opinion Piece by Johnny Be Good — 5 Comments
February 25, 2013

Below is a post published by Peter Pan on July 27, 2012.  In it, he shares his experiences with the GR bullies and how he came to oppose them and everything they stand for.

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The Goodreads Bullies at one point called me an author suck up.

How did we get to that point?

Well, here’s how it all began.

For one, I do have a life outside book blogging. This means that I read a lot, I post a lot of book reviews and it’s only ever-so-often that I log into Goodreads. I never followed the drama. I would see them and think, “Wow, not a very bright author to do/say that over a negative review.”

In other words, I took what these people were saying as the truth. Did it stop me from reading those books? No. I was either already not going to read them or already planning to and I personally didn’t give a flick about the author. I just wanted a good book to read.

Well, one day I noticed one of the authors they were targeting was one who I’d reviewed for. I’d emailed them a copy of the review and they had said thank you, even though I’d given them a critical review.

Up until this point, I’d assumed these people were being honest, and I’d just been lucky to have never encountered anyone freaking out over one of my negative reviews. So when I saw this, I thought, well, why didn’t they freak out over my review then?

I decided to dig deeper, and here is what I found:

First, they had been targeting this author before they had reviewed the book. I think this affects a reviewer’s ability to be unbiased in their review. Their reason for attacking the author was so convoluted it made me feel sick.

Second, at no point did this author lash out about the book review (though they did eventually set the record straight for some inaccuracies posted in the review, which I then verified and was attacked for verifying.) Note: An opinion is an opinion. Saying that a character did or said something they never did or said is just inaccurate, not an opinion.

It was at this point I was told I suck up to authors so I could receive free books. If that were true, I wouldn’t ever give critical reviews. Why would I want free books from an author if I don’t like their books? Their thesis didn’t hold water. I backed off then and watched from afar, and became more and more disturbed.

If I’d believed they were being truthful at first, how many people were fooled by them due to not being able to look more deeply into what was going on? That’s what sent me from fool to furious. No, I never let one of their hate campaigns affect my book-buying habits, but I HAD though they were being truthful when I now know they weren’t.

What’s worse is that things have picked up since then. I don’t think this is because more authors are behaving badly. I think these badly-behaving-reviewers are addicted. They like the attention and the drama, and the more they get, the more they want. So they keep stretching things further and further in order to accuse more authors. Words are taken out of context. Events are entirely fabricated. Anything to create a drama, and so many, like me, believe them at first. Too many remain fools, while others are into it so deep they don’t see a way out. Reviewers agree to fit in. Authors support them in hopes of boosting their own sales and gaining acceptance from them. Better to be on their good side before you can get on their bad side.

Finally, everything makes sense. Why did authors never attack me for a negative review? Now I know why.

For one, my reviews are tasteful. They are done to alert other readers on what to expect, so they can decide if they would like it. Is it based on my opinion? Yes. Did I state my opinions as facts? No.

Secondly, my reviews were always about the book. They weren’t attacks against the author and they weren’t written to rip a book apart because of how I already felt about the author.

-A book review should be about the book.

-A reviewer shouldn’t review a book if they are going to go into it wanting to give it a negative review.

Should the above be laws? No. But they should be expected social conduct. Anything else should be seen as inappropriate at least on a moral basis.

I’m not a “troll” because I disagree with you. It’s funny these people liked and commented on my reviews for years, but suddenly I was a troll the second I disagreed with them? While that’s a convenient accusation for them to make, I don’t think they are so out of touch with reality to think that no “real” person could ever disagree with them.

In the event anyone wants to say I’m a writer, go ahead. I am. I write book reviews. We really aren’t so different. There is no superior kind of writer. Authors need us to buy their books, we need authors to write them so we have something to read. We might not buy some of their books, because we prefer other authors, but other people will buy their books. They may not give us freebies to review, or they might. There’s no need to complicate this simple paradigm with efforts to destroy someone’s career or to accuse a book reviewer of only being nice to authors to get free books. That is a petty way to handle a disagreement and a slap in the face to us reviewers who take our responsibility to write honest reviews seriously.

Reviews are for the reader. Not the author OR the reviewer. And book reviews are about books. If you post a non-book review on a book page, it’s spam. So please, stop spamming Goodreads with your irrelevant opinions based on false information.

Why does this only happen with books? Because this group of ladies chose books. If they chose to review restaurants, you can bet they would hate the chef they never met because they once saw him coming into work wearing a Red Sox jersey. That would say he is inconsiderate of fans of other sports teams and those who hate sports, and so his restaurant deserves to fail and no one should eat there. If the chef replied in any manner of defense, they would say he couldn’t handle criticism of his cooking. And if any of that happened it would be just as bizarre as what is happening on Goodreads.

Because it’s about them. Not about the books or the authors. The problem is wherever they go. If wherever you go you find drama, it’s not hard to figure out who the source of that drama is.

It’s pointless to blame authors. The reviewers aren’t doing any legitimate readers a service. The opposite, in fact. We’re sick of wading through their personal dramas and personal attacks against the author and their petty shelving just to find the legitimate book reviews.

If Goodreads wants to improve the experience for the casual user, I recommend that book pages be for book reviews and nothing more. Shelves are fine, but do we need to need scroll through 100 cases of “so and so shelved this book as ____” just to find one review? Do we need to scroll through 5 reviews to find one that is legitimate? Currently it’s a mess.

At this point, I’m not sure I can trust reviews by people I don’t know any more. What if they are writing a “fake” review just to hurt the author, and it’s not an honest depiction of the story or how they really felt about it? That is, if they even read it. They successfully destroyed all existing credibility of reviewers in general, excluding those who were wise enough to stay out of this mess.

Since we need to repeat this so often, I will say it again. A negative review is not a bully review. A bully review is a review about the author that has nothing to do with the book. A critical or negative review is entirely acceptable. And reviewers DON’T need to be afraid to post those. I’ve been posting them for a long time and no author has ever attacked me for it. This idea that authors are attacking reviewers is so far of base. Once you look a little deeper, you will see what is true.

“I’d rather stab my eyes out than read this book because I hate the author” is not a book review. If an author is hurt by that, it’s not because they can’t accept criticisms on their book. It’s because they are human. There is a difference to attacking a book and attacking an author. While I don’t think either is necessary to give a critical book review, I especially take issue with attacking the author. It’s bullying to the author, and it’s annoying to the rest of us who just want to read honest book reviews that are . . . get this . . . about the book!

Crazy I know. A book review about the actual book. What kind of god-fangled idea is that?

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Authors Are Not Second Class Citizens

Filed Under: Bully Hypocrisy, Bully Lies by Johnny Be Good — 23 Comments
February 18, 2013

Well, well.  It looks as if the bully crowd is trying to tell authors how to behave… AGAIN!  A couple days ago, we received this comment from Maya:

Well, since this site is always about how readers are so mean to authors on GR, maybe this thread will interest you; readers sharing stories of great interactions they had with authors on GR: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1210998-dos-and-don-ts-for-gr-authors-blog-post. It’s the “other side”, so to speak. :)

To which Good Belle responds:

Are you fucking kidding me? Took me all of five seconds to get pissed off reading that thread. Who the hell are readers to tell authors how to/how not to behave?? And check boxes for authors before being ‘granted’ an GR account? Do we live in communist times? This ain’t Russia, China or North Korea – time for us to stop telling authors what they can and cannot do.

And Karig says:

All this does is confirm that places like Goodreads are (currently) useless for authors, particularly authors who aren’t already famous. The clique there (and at other places like the forums at Amazon) react with outrage if an author so much as mentions the name of his book (which is apparently considered “spamming”). Hell, some people there get seriously put out with you if you even mention that you **have** a book without saying what the title is.

I can understand that authors should avoid the “hard sell” and shouldn’t try to get the word out about their books by dumping blurbs and ad-speak onto a forum thread, but Heidi Belleau’s list of rules is offensive. She’s going to tell us that if you’re an author, you can’t talk to your fans unless they talk to you first, and that when that happens, you can talk about other people’s books but NOT your own? Give me a freaking break. Is an author a second-class citizen who needs to be reminded of her place? Is she supposed to shrug and accept lots of one-star reviews from people who haven’t read her books because somebody online with a chip on his shoulder thought she was getting uppity?

These rules are ridiculous, and they make places like Goodreads useless if not poison for writers just starting out and struggling to get fans in the first place.

And then Maya:

Well… you could also ask who the hell are authors to tell readers how to behave. I think everyone simply needs to behave with class and politeness, both authors and readers. I shared because an author wrote the article and I read some successful stories of reader/author interaction in there.

I must have missed the post where they wanted check boxes before allowing authors on GR.

Well, Maya, I think she was referring to on the thread.  It’s right on the front page:CheckBox

Do you see the last sentence there?  That “some people” just like causing drama?  Of course, she’s referring to authors.  But we all know, by the evidence we’ve shown over and over again on our blog, that these “some people” are none other than the bullies we have named on our BBG page.

So, here it is again!  The bullies causing drama and then blaming authors for it.  It NEVER ends.

Now, the author Maya is referring to, who wrote the blog post, is Heidi B.  We’re not going to post what she wrote here.  We’d rather not soil our pretty new theme with her self-righteous excrement, but we do agree with her on one thing – don’t ever wrestle with pigs.  This is why we always tell everyone what we wrote on our Do’s and Don’t’s for Victims: DO NOT engage with the bullies.  They are nothing more than a herd of smelly, foul-mouthed swine who relish in dragging authors down into the mud that they live in and love so well.

What we fully disagree with is Heidi’s statement that recommends authors interact with their fans only if they engage them first.  This is just utterly ridiculous.  Karig is right.  Authors are not second class citizens.  They have a right to correct factual mistakes in reviews without being bullied by these assholes.  They have a right to be offended when they are personally attacked in a “book” review, that is actually an author review.  They also have a right to be annoyed when their books are attacked by an infestation of trolls who leave one-star flybys without even reading the books in the first place.  And yet it seems that all of this is allowed on GR and the moderators are just fine with it.  This is why we alert others (particularly new authors) as to whom and what they need to avoid.  Because their GR experience can actually be rather pleasant if they know the ropes and are warned in advance.

And speaking of warnings, here are couple Anons warning our readers about Heidi and her circle of friends:

The person (author) who wrote the so-called rules is not exactly the person anyone should be taking advice from. Just my observation from reading her on Twitter and various places online over the last year or so.

And then from Anon3:

That disclaimer by the person who started that thread, stating that she doesn’t know the author is a complete lie, and the author who wrote that blog post is best buds on Twitter with some of the worst bullies out there.

Anon3 is referring to on the thread:

DontKnowThisAuthor

Anon3 is absolutely right.  Willaful (one of the BBG) is lying.  Check this out.  Recognize anyone?

Trolls11

If you didn’t recognize one of our Biggest Offenders, go here.

Or how about this shot?  Recognize any names?

Trolls211

Public enemy no. 1?  Hardly.  But Heidi is rolling in the mud with the pigs.  Does it give you the impression that she wrote the post for attention?  Hmm… *scratches chin*  More than likely.  What’s hilarious is the fact that these people are constantly writing up rules for authors.  Because, you see, they always end up breaking them.  For this reason, we’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on Heidi.  If she’s anything like her friends on Twitter, she’ll end just like Looney and her “”.

Everyone remember that?  You know, the code that she broke TWICE.  If anyone is missing our posts on that, showing how she made a complete ass of herself, don’t worry.  Within the next month, we’ll be re-pubbing them, so stay tuned…

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Psychotic Comments

Filed Under: Amazon Fora Trolls, Bullied Author, Bully Attacks, Bully Hypocrisy, Bully Lies, Bully Threats, Goodreads by Johnny Be Good — 29 Comments
February 14, 2013

It looks like the attack on Eve Thomas continues.  As we’ve said before, the bullies never stop.  They are constantly online (either on GR or Amazon) picking fights, trying to humiliate people, and wreaking havoc wherever they tread.  Pathetic, isn’t it?

In this post, due to popular demand, we’ll be showing you the screenshots we have of the verbal diarrhea spewed by the harassing miscreants known as the Amazon Fora Trolls, whose collective IQ happens to total that of a 12-year old child.  We hope no one loses any brain cells while reading.  In the process, we’ll also be publishing the responses of the normal people on the thread.  It’s not hard to tell which is which.  The bullies’ hypocritical and unjustified pontifications are glaringly obvious.

(Please note, we do have an Amazon troll award for the most psychotic comment, but that comes at the end, so keep reading!)

First the conversation starts out rather smoothly with Gillian, Katy, and Sharon showing their support for Eve and Eve responding:

GillAndKaty

EveAndKaty

SharonsComment

Then, the first Amazon troll appears (big surprise):

Coaxial

So Coaxial thinks she wasn’t bullying anyone or being nasty?  Maybe she forgot about the comment she left threatening Eve with nasty reviews.

But this gets better, because… *trumpets sound* we have another troll who appears on the scene and compares naming and shaming to domestic violence (we know, we know, you don’t have to tell us):

JanetNameandShameisDV

Then Sharon and Gillian step in to correct Janet’s unfortunate lack of understanding:

SharonResponseToJanet

Gillian1

This is when Eve’s rep steps in and takes over her account on GR to let them know an investigation is under way:

EvesRep1

And how do they respond to this?  Well, another Amazon troll moves in, HJ Leonard in this case, who doesn’t seem to understand that it’s Eve’s rep talking and not Eve.  Remember what we said about their collective IQ equaling that of a 12-year old?  This is what we mean:

HJ1

We find it funny that HJ doesn’t believe that 87 people contacted Eve to point her to our site.  It’s just proves their denial that they have enemies.  A lot of enemies.  HJ, if you only knew how many blog readers we get a day, you’d be surprised that that number was so low.  But by all means, keep making fools of yourselves.  Keep attacking people online and making enemies.  It’s such a productive way to spend your time, ya know?

And here are some more messages and warnings from Eve’s rep:

EvesRep2

EvesRep3

But they don’t seem to get the message, do they?  Because they keep coming.  Like we said, collective IQ of a 12-year old… wait, no, that would be insulting to all 12-year olds.  I take that back.  The collective IQ of a rock.  That’s better.

ZaharaSidebarofShame

As to the “Sidebar Of Shame”, Juno left this comment on our blog.  I just wanted to share it:

These bullies really are total hypocrites!!! The crap they have come out with over the last few days is laughable! If they could only see themselves the way we see them!!! It goes something like this:

BULLY – “STGRB is a terrible site, they stalk and harasses women!”

NORMAL PERSON – “Really? Where? Show me where STGRB do this? Hey Bully you are the one stalking and harassing women. Do you want to see the proof? See the screen shots above! You bully both authors and readers. You have destroyed many authors careers! YOU are the one dong these things!”

BULLY – “STRGB is mean, they hurt my feelings. BOO-HOO! They made a list of names including my name. They called this list Badly Behaving Goodreaders & Amazon Trolls. Listing peoples names is bullying! That makes STGRB bullies! My feelings are really hurt! Winge-whine!!!”

NORMAL PERSON – “Hey bully stop being such a cry baby! YOU have made a list of authors names on GR and Amazon, you have called your list Badly Behaving Authors. So in your own words that makes YOU a bully. These authors’ only crime was promoting their books, they didn’t bully or hurt anyone. Is it ok for YOU to make lists of peoples names??? But it is not ok for STGRB to make lists???”

BULLY – “A-HHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! *GROWL* You support THAT site! You are one of them! You are a woman hater! You are a child molester! I hate you! NOW!!! SEE WHAT YOU HAVE MADE ME SAY??? You have caught me out and now I must destroy you!!! I am going to email all my bully friends and get them on here to attack you!!! I’m going to log into all multiple troll accounts and I’ll attack you with ALL of them!!! I WILL MAKE YOU PAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

NORMAL PERSON – “Bully you are a whining hypocrite! I am going to ignore you from now on because I know exactly what you are up to!!! I rest my case!” :)

Okay, so, moving on.  Eve’s rep steps in again:

EvesRepToZahara

ZaharhaOnOutingPersonalInfo

Now… this is the good part, or I should say, one of the good parts.  The next two screenshots are of particular interest to us.  I almost choked when I read Zahara condemning doxxing.  Why?  Keep reading.

GillianBlockedZahara

ZaharaToGillian

Do you know why Gillian blocked Zahara?  Because we let Gillian know exactly who Zahara (aka Zahara Cerise) is.  You see, they’ve met before.  On Amazon.  Here is Zahara on Amazon revealing her identity to HJ Leonard:

ImZConGR

And guess what Anna Karenina did to Gillian?  She stalked her and dug up personal information about her.  Then she outed it to everyone on Amazon.  But that’s not all.  This gets better, or I should say, worse.  She then threatened Gillian with other, more private information that she had discovered.  We’re not at liberty to tell you what that is or show any screenshots.  If you want to know more, you can ask Gillian.  She has all the proof that Anna/Zahara did this.

Disgusting, isn’t it?

Here are a couple more comments from Eve’s rep to Anna/Zahara:

EvesRepToZahara2

EvesRepToZahara3

Now, we’re getting to the finale.  To the Amazon troll award for the most psychotic comment which goes to Mahala Burlingame!  First Mahala can’t understand why her comments are being removed even after Eve’s rep distinctly told the Amazon trolls that theirs would be.

MahalaAndPunked

And then Mahala leaves this:

MahalaToPunked38Loaded

Not just a little freaky, is it?

PunkedToMahala1

MahalaEvesRep

Then Mahala says she’s going to report Eve’s rep to GR:

MahalaInvestigateEvesRep

Then Katy says:

Katy

Then:

MahalaToKaty

You know, I think Mahala just likes to report people.  Makes her feel special and important.

Finally, Eve’s rep blocks her and that’s the end of it.

EvesRepMahalaBlocked

But… the award still goes to Mahala.  So, congratulations, Mahala!  You’ve just won our most psychotic comment award!  Good for you!  You must be so proud.

But really, in all seriousness, we hope that Eve is alright, that the investigation goes well, and that these jerks are held accountable for their actions.  If there’s anything we can do to help, we will.  And if people (and GR) can’t see by now how deranged and dangerous these trolls are, then there is no point in posting this stuff anymore.  It’s just getting ridiculous.

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GR Bullies Contact Eve’s Charity

Filed Under: Abuse, Bullied Author, Bully Attacks, Bully Crime, News by Johnny Be Good — 43 Comments
February 11, 2013

We just received this message from a site visitor:

Message

Immediately, we went to the link and took a screenshot of :

EvesPost

As far as we’re concerned, this was crossing way over the line, although we’re not really sure what they were trying to accomplish.  Their claims against us are false as anyone who reads our blog can clearly see.

Eve is absolutely right.  If these bullies didn’t behave this way, we would have nothing to post about them.  All we are doing is simply reporting on their behavior and showing our readers the screenshots.

As for our relationship with Eve, there is none.  We want to make it clear that she is not affiliated with our site in any way.  We simply posted the information about the attack on her when she tried to apologize.  We were tipped off about the attack, not by Eve, but by other site visitors who will remain anonymous for their protection (from the bullies.)  We sincerely hope that everything works out with Eve’s charity and that the bullies are held accountable for their actions.

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Wendy Darling

Filed Under: Bullied Author, Bully Attacks, GR Bully by Johnny Be Good — 3 Comments
February 11, 2013

Below is a post we published on July 20, 2012.  It is our coverage of Wendy Darling and the attack she led on Kiera Cass.  Remember in Apology Not Accepted when we mentioned the other case where an author’s apology wasn’t accepted?  Well, this is it.

Over a year ago, Kiera Cass’s agent made a mistake and when Kiera saw the damage, she tried to reach out to the injured parties and apologize.  She was completely ignored and then Wendy sent in the brute squad to wage a hate campaign against her.  Check out the clipping we took from Wendy’s blog post toward the end.  That screenshot says it all.

**************************************************************************************

WendyDarlingGR name:

Real name: Mimi G.

Category: Godmother (of the GR bullies)

Level of Toxicity: DEFCON 1, Maximum Alert

We weren’t really sure where to begin with Wendy Darling as there has been so much already written about her and her infamous review of The Selection.  Fortunately, Stitch found a terrific website called The Goodreads Follies (an informative site we highly recommend.)  There, he found two posts on Wendy: Reviewer Wendy Darling Joins the Fray and Reviewer Wendy Darling – Part 2.  These two posts document thoroughly the events that occurred back in January:

Today’s reviewer is . She posted a of by . The review seemed well-written to us. We haven’t read the book, so we can’t say whether we agree with it or not.

Let’s start with the most clear case of over-reacting: the one on (which her review on GR links to). An anonymous commenter writes, “You gave such a bad review for a book you didn’t even read all the way though??? Well, I did read the entire book and it was absolutely, positively, wonderful!!!!” Wendy’s first response is polite, and she’s in the comments thread on the GR version of the review. We applaud that.

The anonymous commenter continues with, “I thoroughly enjoyed this book and await for the next one with anticipation. But, like you say, I’m entitled to my opinion and you to yours. I do hope that people don’t dismiss a good read based only on your opinion though, it was well worth the read. Are you an Author?” Pretty obvious where this silliness is headed, yes? One red herring complaint from some over-sensitive authors is that someone gave a book a bad review because they are jealous competing authors.

Wendy gets snippy in return, “…it’s very hard to have a conversation with someone who seems to be very insistent upon making sure her opinion is known on someone else’s review. …”. While we acknowledge that Anonymous was being stupid, Wendy’s response seems to indicate that she is not open to discussion of her reviews.which is a hair’s breadth away from the lately-cropped-up attitude on GR that anyone who questions a reviewer’s review is either an author or a troll. And that’s the attitude that has us so annoyed.

Anonymous can’t leave well enough alone and has a final parting shot, “… I’m going away now and not coming back because I’m having a hard time having a conversation with someone who is a Disney Character.” Commeter Cillian decides to feed the troll (remember this name; she’ll most likely be the subject of a future post). Then another anonymous commenter then jumps to the conclusion that the first anonymous is really the author and that those silly comments constitute bullying. This comment is even more offensive to us. As we’ve said many times before, really bullying is serious and calling a couple of silly comments on a blog post “bullying” trivializes it.

Back on the GR review, Wendy to a Twitter conversation between Kiera Cass and Elena Roth, who is later revealed to be Ms. Cass’s agent. Ms. Roth is upset about the order in which reviews are posted on a book’s GR page because (we think) that Wendy’s was the first review.  Ms. Cass initially dismisses Ms. Roth’s complaint. Ms. Roth goes on to call Wendy (assuming hers is the review in question) a bitch and says that she went in and “liked” the positive reviews. Ms. Cass says that she may also like the positives, then moves on another topic.

And the reviewer crowd goes wild! Highlights include:

Hannah Joy remarkably hypocrisy, by calling Ms. Roth a “piece of shit” (in our opinion, this is worse than “bitch”).

Julianna Ms. Cass of calling Wendy a “bitch”, even though Ms. Cass didn’t.

Sharon the author is immature…for what we’re not sure.

Chelsea Ms. Cass for Ms. Roth’s words. Sans the author of “asshattery” for comments that Ms. Roth – not the author! – made. .

Reviewer The Holy Terror, one of the worst of the whingers, , “… it’s really, really dumb of Cass to act like this.” Like what? Ms. Cass wasn’t the one throwing around the epithets.

Ace’s comment is  for misusing the term “bullying”.

Stephanie  because she (Ms. Cass) actually found some good humor in the early version of Wendy’s review. Liking a review is tasteless?

And the comments continue. We can’t continue to read and post because the exaggerations, lack of reading comprehension, and general nastiness on the part of many commenters is extremely tiring.

A quick review of Twitter also shows that Jane Litte of DearAuthor has once again commented on this matter. She accuses Ms. Cass of trying to “jigger” the ratings and “down vote” a negative review. Sorry, Ms. Litte, GR doesn’t allow you to “down vote”. The most intellectually disturbing comment by Ms. Litte is where she implies that . You know what, people don’t automatically lose their right to have an opinion simply because they know and like an author. Anti-free-speech much?

If you read both posts, you will get all the details.  The only problem with them is that many of the links they provide no longer work.  The content has since been removed.  Why?  Because Wendy and the bullies are masters at covering their tracks.  Wendy herself is highly skilled at playing the victim and making herself look good so that she can come out of things smelling like a rose.  Does she smell like a rose?  Hmm, let me think about that … uh, no.

After this episode, Wendy sent in the thugs to terrorize Kiera.  This is why we call her the Godmother, because she doesn’t actually do the dirty work herself.  She sends in the ringleaders and the minions to do it for her.

Under all the pressure, Kiera contacted Wendy to apologize and also had her agent contact Wendy as well to issue her formal apology.  And what does Wendy do?  Does she forgive and forget?  Does she even respond to Kiera?  Absolutely not.  She completely ignores her (screencap from Wendy’s blog):

DidNotRespond

But wait!  There’s more!  Since Wendy has contacts at Publisher’s Weekly and has written for them before:

FreelanceWriter

She pitched them a story that eventually became this PW article which resulted in a vicious hate campaign launched against Kiera.  Since then, Kiera has not heard the end of it.  People are still attacking her, like Ashamed Of You on one of :

AOYAttackOnKiera

To which Kiera responded:

KierasResponse

So you see, Kiera has been trying to contact Wendy for a long time, telling her how sorry she is for the whole affair even when it wasn’t Kiera who insulted Wendy in the first place.  Wendy has not forgiven her but instead has completely ignored her, even admitting to it.  Then, she sends in her thugs to terrorize and wage a hate campaign against her.

So, you tell us.  Who is the monster here and who is the victim?

As far as we’re concerned, Kiera Cass is the nicest, kindest, most generous person you will ever meet and she never deserved to be vilified.

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