Witty Little Knitter

I love these 'foreign country non-guidebooks' written by people who either moved completely to a foreign country or spend much time there and then write about all the quirks and things that might seem odd to people visiting from other countries so when this book was free I snagged it. Approximately 100 years later I actually started reading and pretty quickly felt slightly uncomfortable. The book could as well have been titled 'Reasons to hate Romania'. The author just kept going on about the negative things. How he got beaten up, corruption, reckless driving...now other books of that type don't ignore negative aspects completely but they don't focus on them as much as this author did and they also try to explain (if possible) how history and other aspects lead to this country viewing things differently.

I thought that perhaps I was overreacting and decided to check out some of the reviews and the book had in fact glowing reviews, lots of 4 and 5 stars and barely any 1-3 stars. Many of the glowing reviews were also written by Romanians who said that this was really exactly how their country was like. I shrugged, thought that I probably had the wrong sense of humour for this book and decided to move on..after checking out the only 1* review. The reviewer had similar complaints to mine: to much negativity.

Aaaaaaaand

The publisher of the book (or somebody claiming to be her) had commented and explained the reviewer all the ways in which he was wrong.

Charming. (And yes it included the old favourite 'Why did you read it when you didn't like it?')

I was unhappy but that was just the publisher...

Just that the author had also commented. On a 3* review, again one with similar reservations. To give him credit he was much politer than the publisher (or "publisher"?) but he told him all the prizes he won for the book and quoted all people who told him how great that book was.

LOOK! Let me tell you how wrong you are!11!!!

I suddenly don't feel like reading this book anymore....