00:00:59.040Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:08.800There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:16.900I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:19.620okay so mike i desperately need to talk about what's going on with the goodreads review bombing
00:01:29.440story honestly this is like probably one of the more wild stories i've heard in a very long time
00:01:37.420and if i'm saying that somebody who covers weird wild stories on the internet if i'm saying this
00:01:44.260you know it's truly wild. We were going to do this in this week's news roundup, but honestly,
00:01:49.940I had so much to say about it that I decided it needed to be its own thing. That's because it
00:01:55.960really involves a lot of stuff that I spend a ton of time thinking and talking about. First of all,
00:02:02.320book communities online. I don't know how tapped in you are to like online book communities like
00:02:09.560BookTok or Bookstagram. But the drama is always very deep when it's online book drama.
00:02:17.980People who are voracious readers and connect about it on the internet, their drama is very
00:02:24.880deep. I consider myself part of that community, by the way. So I can say that because I'm one of
00:02:29.600them. Okay. This is good context to have. You often tell me about very intense internet drama,
00:02:36.900And it often involves book clubs. So I didn't realize that this was like a particularly common thing of book communities, but it makes sense.
00:02:46.160Oh, yes. So that's part of why I'm so interested in this. But there's also issues of how platforms impact marginalized people.
00:02:55.280Like a lot of issues mixed up with what it means to be a creative professional in this day and age and how the Internet experience has sort of complicated that.
00:03:02.940And also, good old-fashioned jealousy, something I know quite a bit about.
00:03:08.860So there's a lot going on here, so let's get into it.
00:03:12.720So this story really all starts with an author named Kate Corian.
00:03:17.580She's an author who had a highly anticipated book coming out called The Crown of Starlight,
00:03:23.800which was meant to be out in May of 2024.
00:03:26.220I also read that she might have had, like, this book deal and then, like, a subscription box deal from this book and then, like, maybe even, like, a film publishing deal on the table.
00:03:39.300So Kate is a writer who had a lot of positive things going on.0.93
00:03:45.300Like, she was really doing the damn thing, very successful.
00:03:49.440But now, Kate's book has been shelved after she admitted using Goodreads to review bomb a bunch of forthcoming books, mostly by Black, Asian, and queer authors.0.96
00:04:02.360It sounds like this had been going on for kind of a while, and that it was something that the writing community was aware of and knew was happening, but was up until this point kind of hoping to deal with privately.
00:04:14.100They knew that she in particular was doing it or just that it was like a general problem in their community?
00:04:22.180I think that writers knew that this specific writer, Kate, was doing this.
00:04:27.840And I think that writers were generally aware that Goodreads and Goodreads bombing, like submitting tons and tons of bad reviews for a book, even if you haven't read it, is an ongoing problem in the space.
00:04:40.160So I think I would say both if I had to say.
00:04:42.080So the first time that this came on my radar was when Canadian author Zeran Jezuao first tweeted about it, and that's when it really got more wide attention online.
00:04:53.320So they first noticed that Kate's book, Crown of Starlight, was getting good reviews from the same accounts that were also trashing other books.
00:05:01.760Some of those books were not even out yet.
00:05:06.660If you as a debut author are going to make a bunch of fake Goodreads accounts,
00:05:10.220one-star bombing fellow debuts that you're threatened by,
00:05:13.280can you at least not make it so obvious by uploading your own book
00:05:16.760on a bajillion different lists with those same accounts?
00:05:20.300So they then posted a 31-page Google document,
00:05:23.940which we'll link to in the show notes, of receipts,
00:05:27.060screenshots showing the Goodreads activity of a number of accounts
00:05:30.460with usernames including names like Chantal B. and O.C. Young that they suspected were actually
00:05:37.440Kate, leaving good reviews for her own book and bad reviews for other people's debut books.
00:05:44.280So the books that she left bad reviews for were mostly written by people of color,
00:05:50.540including So Let Them Burn by Camila Cole, which was meant to be released in January of next year,
00:05:55.000and to gaze upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang, whose book is actually being put out by the same
00:06:01.520publisher, Del Rey, as Kate's book. So this is essentially like trashing a fellow writer
00:06:09.680whose book is being published by the same company. Pretty bad.
00:06:14.820But it's also like not surprising at all, right? That like this sort of petty jealousy would be
00:06:19.980happening within a single publishing house. I bet these women know each other and have been1.00
00:06:26.700in the same circles for a while. Notably, the authors of these books say that in some cases,
00:06:32.720their books weren't even available yet. They hadn't been published. And in some cases,
00:06:36.480they had not even sent out advanced copies or galleys. So how could someone be reviewing it
00:06:42.300if there's no way to actually read the book? It's not out yet. They have not sent out any
00:06:47.600kind of advanced copies, how are you, how is someone leaving bad reviews already on Goodreads?
00:06:52.560Something else to note here is that these reviews are not just negative. In some cases,
00:06:57.980they're like downright mean. In one review, Kate writes, I can't believe Del Rey spent half a
00:07:05.340million dollars on this when they could have spent half a million dollars on anything else.
00:07:10.840Sorry, not sorry. Like that's not even, that's just like a mean review. You don't deserve the
00:07:16.820money that you were paid to write this book and literally anything else would have been a better
00:07:21.420way to spend that money that is not a criticism of the book or the text it is like just a mean
00:07:27.700insult yeah and it just drips with that same petty jealousy like they could have spent it on
00:07:34.700anything else like one of my books yes that should have that money should have been my money
00:07:39.540hold that thought because yes a million times yes and that's going to come up very soon so we also
00:07:46.040need to talk about the fact that there is a very real like identity aspect to this like a very real
00:07:51.760racial aspect to this I want to come back to that in just a moment but some of the names that Kate
00:07:57.800chose are clearly meant to sound like they could belong to people of color names like O.C. Young
00:08:03.200were some of the fake names that Kate used to leave mean reviews on other people's work and
00:08:09.880then like using a fake name that is clearly meant to sound like it is the fake name of a person of
00:08:15.660color to trash authors of color while also praising her own work as a white woman is like0.99
00:08:23.040so diabolically like messed up. That's just so, that's like, there's layers to how fucked up that1.00
00:08:30.860is. So using the fake name O.C. Young, Kate left this review on her own book. I love this book so0.98
00:08:38.780much that I regret reading it because now nothing on my to-be-read sounds as interesting by
00:08:44.200comparison. So like, clearly that's not just hyping up her own book. It is a way to trash
00:08:50.060other authors of color in the process. Zal, that Canadian author who was the first person that I0.68
00:08:57.540saw tweeting about this, really summed it up. They say, there's something extra despicable about
00:09:02.780using clearly people of color names in fake accounts to upvote every negative review on
00:09:08.620people of color books. So the top ones are all one and two star, like what in the yellow face?
00:09:15.100What's also funny about that is that if anybody has read the novel Yellow Face, which was probably0.56
00:09:19.660one of my favorite novels of this year, it's like a plot point from that novel, a white writer being
00:09:26.900kind of like pretending to be a person of color because they are so jealous of writers of color.
00:09:33.360It's so interesting how this whole situation mirrors the plot line of a very popular novel that everybody should read.
00:09:39.920It was the best novel I read this year.
00:09:41.620So this is already, like, a really awful, messed up thing to have done.
00:09:47.780But when Kate was called out on it, rather than just fessing up and coming clean and being like,
00:09:54.060yep, I did this. Jealousy got the better of me. She made things so much worse by inventing a fake
00:10:02.000friend to take the fall. So a bunch of these debut authors, including authors whose books
00:10:08.360were targeted by Kate, were all in a Slack channel for debut writers. And of course,
00:10:13.760they were discussing what happened and starting to suspect Kate. Meredith Mooring, who it sounds
00:10:19.880like was friends with Kate, told them all like, oh, listen, Kate did not do this. She could not
00:10:25.540have done this. And Kate has proof that she didn't do this. It was a friend of hers who did
00:10:31.020this. Meredith told the writers in this debut writer Slack channel, hold tight. Kate will pop
00:10:37.420in to explain. And eventually Kate does pop into this Slack channel and explains. She writes,0.92
00:10:43.600I did not, capital letters, review bomb anyone. I did not positively review my own book with
00:10:52.180false accounts. So basically this is Kate's explanation. She says that somebody named
00:10:58.600Lily in the Reylo fandom community, which is a particularly like dedicated online fan community
00:11:05.920that centers on the romantic relationship between two Star Wars characters, Rey and Kylo Ren. And
00:11:13.120She said that this person, Lily, she had met this person through this particularly dedicated online fan base, and that in this fan base, she would pick up people like this who were just very, very dedicated, and that that was the person who was behind these reviews.
00:11:32.940This person, Lily, was just like a friend of hers, believed so much in her writing, wanted to make her writing a success, and that's why she was the one who was behind these reviews.
00:11:46.120This person is someone I knew from a time in Star Wars fandom, where I was a well-known fan fiction author and a lightning rod for unhinged behavior, the type of behavior that anyone else who was well-known in the fandom at the time still sees online.
00:16:04.460knowing this is a conversation between one person like someone's faking a like someone is playing
00:16:11.520both parts of this it just sounds so fake there's like a long part of just straight exposition in
00:16:18.100there i've been sitting here worried that someone was review bombing me only to find out that i
00:16:22.260wasn't the victim of a review bombing campaign but instead someone i trusted and considered a friend
00:16:26.320really thought i was so insecure like nobody taught nobody explains like conveniently explains
00:16:31.960what is happening in their life in such clear and explicit terms it's like when you watch a movie
00:16:37.380and the main character is like oh well like convenient explanation of what's going on in
00:16:45.060the plot yeah or like right when they've got james bond captured and the the villain is explaining
00:16:53.700his master plan. So I cannot believe that this is what she published on the Slack channel to
00:17:02.060prove in heavy quotes that she was not the person behind this review bombing. And I really got to
00:17:08.520give it to the authors of color, some of whom weren't even targeted, who just like cared about
00:17:12.980this enough to stay on it, who really stayed on Kate even after she dropped this very compelling
00:17:19.580proof to get to the truth. So people were asking, like, can you show us earlier conversations
00:17:26.960between you and Lily so that we can actually verify this person exists? Like, very convenient
00:17:33.540that the only conversations that you're able to show are conversations where you're talking about
00:17:38.840this specific incident and not any other conversations from somebody that you said
00:17:43.820that you've had an online friendship with that was so deep that it led them to do this. Pretty
00:17:49.080weird right yeah pretty weird pretty weak evidence very weak evidence like i honestly
00:17:57.480can't believe that she posted this she's a novelist right like yeah like she's supposed
00:18:05.420to make up stories that presumably sound plausible yeah it really kind of makes you
00:18:14.860I think, like, oh, maybe this is why she felt like she had to do this review bombing scheme because she didn't think she was going to be successful on her own, maybe?
00:18:26.560If this is the caliber of writing that she puts out.
00:19:26.920If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:19:32.860This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:19:45.320I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:19:52.440I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:23:44.840I don't want to get too deep into this because, like, she may very well be suffering from genuine mental health and substance abuse issues.0.89
00:23:52.400However, I really do take issue with how she uses her mental and substance abuse issues as a defense.
00:24:00.800Like, it is the very first sentence of this explanation, even.
00:24:05.060And I just don't know that I would agree that mental health issues or substance issues would cause you to do something that is like so clearly racially motivated.
00:24:18.780You know, I don't I don't think that is a defense.
00:24:24.500And I take issue with how she is framing it of like, oh, I was suffering from some kind of a mental breakdown.
00:24:30.660I know plenty of people who suffer with addiction issues and suffer with mental health issues.
00:24:34.680And I don't know that this is something that I would say is a typical result of dealing with mental or substance abuse issues.
00:25:03.420It does seem like that at first her publisher, Del Rey, was like, oh, we're going to hold her book launch.
00:25:10.160We're not going to launch it until later.
00:25:11.900Like maybe we'll launch it when the heat dies down.
00:25:13.740But then they said recently that they are just going to drop her permanently.
00:25:17.360Her friend who stuck up for her in that Slack channel for debut authors, Meredith Mooring, has publicly said that she felt lied to and that she is, you know, saying like, I'm not going to talk to Kate ever again.
00:26:54.800It is not surprising to me that this is all happening on Goodreads.
00:26:59.560Goodreads, which is owned by Amazon, does say that they have rules against review bombing.
00:27:04.600Their rules say, artificially inflating or deflating a book's ratings or reputation violates our rules.
00:27:11.180This includes activity like creating fake accounts to manipulate book ratings, purchasing reviews, and incentivizing votes, likes, or other actions on Goodreads.
00:27:21.420However, this is far from the first time that review bombing campaigns have happened on Goodreads.
00:27:27.500And also, this is not even the first time that they have been racially motivated.
00:27:31.640Back in the summer, the New York Times published a piece called How Review Bombing Can Tank a Book Before It's Published.
00:27:37.840In it, they described how the same things that make Goodreads work and a platform that people want to show up to talk about books,
00:27:44.900you know, excitement and passion around books, also makes it an effective tool to sabotage writers.
00:27:51.960And like most online attacks, it is more marginalized people who bear the brunt of it.
00:27:56.900The New York Times talked to Cecilia Rabbis, a Black woman and a former data scientist at Google who left tech to write her debut novel called Everything's Fine, which is about a young Black woman working at Goldman Sachs who falls in love with a conservative white co-worker with bigoted views.
00:28:14.480Her book was the target of coordinated review bombing campaigns.
00:39:42.020And like really internalizing what's going on with others that you can't even focus on what you have, which in Kate's situation was a lot.
00:39:52.560Kate had a lot of success and she ruined that because of her own inability to stop being jealous and stop obsessing and fantasizing about what other people might get.
00:40:54.680I don't want to negate the fact that Kate probably was dealing with very real feelings that are tough to grapple with. I have had to do a ton of work to keep that kind of comparison and jealousy from making me spin out or making me second guess my own work.
00:41:13.440if you're, if this is something that sounds familiar, I will give you, I will give folks a
00:41:17.540tip. Like the way that I have learned to sort of reprogram jealousy in my own mind is by kind of
00:41:26.100flipping the dynamic a little bit. And so training myself to see the wins of people in my circle,
00:41:32.240the wins of people that I know as my own wins. And so like when a friend of mine gets on a best
00:41:39.180of list, telling myself like, wow, how great for me that I am connected to such a dynamic
00:41:46.740network of creators that I know somebody like this, like what a win for me, you know, this is,
00:41:53.300wow, this is somebody that maybe I can collaborate with. Like, what a great thing for me. Like
00:41:57.620really seeing the wins of other people as wins for yourself has really helped me sort of reframe
00:42:05.720the game a little bit and like not be like salty when someone gets something that I want it could
00:42:11.900be helpful so that's a little tip for folks uh but I also think it's it's about remembering that
00:42:18.080success is not finite something good happening to somebody else does not mean that something
00:42:25.920is being taken away from you they're like it is such a white supremacist and also like
00:42:34.120patriarchal lie that there could only be one. There's only enough room for one person to be
00:42:39.380successful. Capitalism and white supremacy and all of those other forces want us to think that
00:42:45.960there is only enough room for one, but that is a lie. There truly is enough for all of us. There
00:42:51.200is enough room for all of us to be at the table. There is enough room for all of us to be successful,
00:42:56.220for all of us to have what we need. You do not need the voice in your head that says that other
00:43:01.960people doing similar work are your competitors and not your collaborators. That voice is a liar.0.95
00:43:07.840There is truly enough room for all of us. And honestly, we can all be successful. We can all
00:43:14.160win. And Kate, that's the thing is Kate really was successful, it sounds like, but she spoiled0.99
00:43:20.120it all. And you know what? It wasn't Authors of Color who blocked her bag. It was her own behavior.
00:43:26.880like it was herself in the end that is the the main your main hater yourself yeah boy what a
00:43:36.380what an arc to the story huh it's true so we'll add a link in the show notes to the different
00:43:43.200authors who were impacted if you want to get their books show them some love um yeah a wild
00:43:50.900story at the end of the day. Remember, don't let jealousy let you spin out and block your own bag.
00:43:57.880You truly are enough. Don't leave fake reviews. Don't make up fake conversations with people who
00:44:03.060don't exist. Just do your best. That's all we can do. Well, thanks, Bridget. I really
00:44:08.260enjoyed that. That was a wild story. I told you it was wild.