The thing is, she's successful. She doesn't "need" to play games like that.(Not that anyone "needs" to, from a public-square standpoint, of course. But, you know, John Krasinski has not been in a film of anything of mine. Mostly, he is too pale to feature in my published work.) IoN, writing again for the first real day in weeks, and though it reads okay here, I feel like the world will be able to tell I'm a spinstery cripple sitting in my veal pen making shit up. My self-loathing, let me show you it.

And the reason she's successful is not because she never had one or two one-star or otherwise negative reviews. It amazes me that someone with her experience in the business is so naive. Or simply so stupid.

I suspect neurosis, and possibly narcissism rather than stupidity. (I use these in the popular sense and not as medical diagnoses.) I'm not saying she may not be stupid as well, but this I would put to other types of mental problem.

Most writers are probably a little bit of both. But most people who've achieved her level of success have a little bit more self-control.

Some people are going to hate her work cause girls have cooties.

Some people are going to hate her work cause girls have cooties.

Emily Giffin?

Yeah, I don't think most people that would hate her work as a rule (i.e. people who don't like general women's fiction) are going to bother reviewing it, but everyone's going to get a few readers who don't like a particular book.

To some extent, women's fiction still comes with automatic disrespect.

Right, but my point is that it's just accepted. No one bothers to protest the fact that her chick lit novel isn't up for the Pulitzer, you know? Fiction like Giffin writes is not romance, but it's not Maeve Binchy-esque either, it exists in its own little pink ghetto, and no one expects different.

Yeah, I don't mean to say she should be *surprised*