notsurewheretogo, You know, it's interesting that Amazon doesn't have an actual policy you have to have read a book to review it. I hate it when I read someone's review of Crisis of Conscience or some other great book and they start out with "well, I haven't read this book, but...." and then go on a rant against it based on what they think is in the book. This is like posting a movie review on Rotten Tomatoes from watching a few commercials and hearing your workmates talk about a movie at the water cooler. Anyway, I wish Beth would post here too...
Doofdaddy, yup. But it's taking it to another level to go public with this. That's the disturbing part. She felt the need to post her self loathing and angst as a review.
ToesUp, yes, exactly. The interesting thing here is she is getting the love bombing, but for 5 years now. Isn't that a bit long to be studying without committing? How long can the JWs keep this up? She's obviously not "in" enough to know what the religion is really like, but not "out" enough to see it clearly either.
Username, thank you very much for the compliment. I'm so glad my books entertained you. I hope they made your day a bit better and strengthened your resolve that leaving the Watch Tower was the right move.
In the light of what Username said about prospective purchasers, I want to tell you all an interesting phenomenon about the occasional bad review for an otherwise well reviewed book: they can actually increase sales. I noticed this with Journey to God's House a few years ago when I first published. When absolutely everyone was giving it good reviews the sales figures were OK, but after somebody posted a 1 star review blasting the book (which I admit kind of hurt my feelings) I noticed it spike to #1 in the genre and stay there! Then, after awhile and many more good reviews, it went back to OK and then another bad review and it spiked again. Weird. After publishing Escape from Paradise, I was especially watchful about this because it got only good reviews at first, but once the first bad one hit, the sales spiked for it too. So, I want everyone to know that I really don't care about the 1 star bad slam reviews like that. They don't hurt the book at all... maybe they help it. (Although I suppose any book that got only bad reviews wouldn't survive...) I brought this up because it really hurt me to see a person who the book could help the most, a person studying with Witnesses who should get a more rounded exposure to the real truth, just pan the book with a blind obedience to a horrible religion, at the same time saying it isn't a cult, with the goal to indoctrinate her child in the same way! To me, this is frightening and sad.
