Once, at a college far far away, I went to a play and ran into one of my theater professors; one good enough that he was paid to travel to Europe and teach summer workshops.
The play’s one review slammed it. Why was he there? Because he always went to the plays where the critics loved it or hated it. His take was that it takes something powerful to make a critic hate it. And, sometimes, that means that a play hated by critics is, in fact, genius.
The reason for that seeming bit of reminiscing is that there was just another first like that at GrandViaduct: one of our books received a one star rating. And my favorite review is by Dotty:
This book literally gave me a nightmare. I mean I woke up crying like I haven’t since I was 12 …I wish someone had told me about it so I could go give somebody a piece of my mind. I don’t know why I went all the way through it…
I don’t like it when people have nightmares. Hopefully other readers like Dotty will see her review and find a better match. However, what I love is that with two reader reviews we have both a critic who hated it and one who loved it (Terrific and Frightening, 5 stars).
Does that mean it’s genius? We think so. That’s why we published it.