“Why do People Hate Naked Men?” and Other Weird Search Terms

*warning possible sexual assault triggers*

I talk a lot about statistics here on my blog, mainly because when I started blogging I noticed very few bloggers do.  It confused me and I would like for new bloggers to be able to see what realistic expectations are when they start blogging.  That, and sometimes I just love hearing your thoughts on statistics and the way I analyze them.

But there’s one type of statistic I haven’t covered: search engine terms.

On an average day I get around 100 referrals from search engines and a lot of them make sense.  Terms like ‘hunger games and ancient rome’ or ‘game of thrones women’.  I’ve written a lot about these topics and I like to think that I wrote about them quite well, which is why more people find them.  Terms like the examples I’ve provided make sense, but every blogger knows that along with the logical terms you’re going to get some really weird and/or scary search terms.  Here are a few of the weirdest:

why do people hate naked men?

explicit sex scenes

mad concubine

really scary people

how to make your kids look like nerds

rape girls

nerd mode

illinois child support disbursement

mature rape

nude actress

Okay, my blog is what I consider to be family-friendly.  I don’t swear often and I try not to explicitly discuss things like gore or sex.  And yet, what search terms do I get?  ‘rape girls’, ‘mature rape’, etc.  Yes, I have touched on the topic of rape when it comes up in novels.  So now I have reaffirmed my faith that the internet is dark and full of terrors.

As for some of the other stuff, it doesn’t even make sense.  ‘illinois child support disbursement’?  I’ve never, ever written about Illinois, child support or disbursements that I know about.  I can’t fathom how many pages someone had to go through on Google to get to my little blog.

Of all of these search terms, I think the strangest one I’ve ever had is “Why do people hate naked men?”  Um…I really have no reply or explanation for that.  Especially since I’ve never written about hating (or loving, for that matter) naked men.  I’ve mentioned naked men and how people seem to be such prudes about naked bodies in my Game of Thrones article, but I just find it odd that someone would even search that question.  Personally, I have nothing against naked men.  Or women, for that matter.  Obviously someone somewhere does.

So what do you guys think of some of these terms?  If you’re a blogger, what’s the weirdest search term you’ve ever had show up?

Discussion: Do Reviews Affect Your Book Buying Decisions?

Due to the fact that I’ve had a lot of free time this week, I’ve been thinking about my blog a lot more.  What is the point of reviewing?  Do people read my reviews?  Is having a lot of reviews from book blogs a plus for self-published authors?

Of all of these questions, one really stuck in my mind.  Do reviews affect your book buying decisions?  For example, if you see that a book has a lot of five star reviews on Amazon that sound legitimate and offer reasons for their praise, does it make you more likely to read the book?  Or, if you find that your favourite book blogger has reviewed a book do you go check it out and maybe buy it?

Personally I look at books that interest me and then look at the reviews on Amazon and/or Goodreads.  What were some of the pluses?  What were some of the things reviewers didn’t like?  Reviews aren’t the be-all end-all factor in my book buying decisions, but they sure do have some influence.  Another thing I’ve noticed is that if one of my book blogger friends has reviewed a book and I think it sounds cool I am much more likely to go out and buy that book because I become aware of its existence.  Maybe that’s just me.

So my question for you guys is this: Do reviews affect your book buying decisions?  Why or why not?  And if so, to what extent?

The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara with Susan McClelland

The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara with Susan McClelland(Cover picture courtesy of Open Book Toronto.)

As a child in a small rural village in Sierra Leone, Mariatu Kamara lived peacefully surrounded by family and friends. Rumors of rebel attacks were no more than a distant worry.

But when 12-year-old Mariatu set out for a neighboring village, she never arrived. Heavily armed rebel soldiers, many no older than children themselves, attacked and tortured Mariatu. During this brutal act of senseless violence they cut off both her hands.

Stumbling through the countryside, Mariatu miraculously survived. The sweet taste of a mango, her first food after the attack, reaffirmed her desire to live, but the challenge of clutching the fruit in her bloodied arms reinforced the grim new reality that stood before her. With no parents or living adult to support her and living in a refugee camp, she turned to begging in the streets of Freetown.

In this gripping and heartbreaking true story, Mariatu shares with readers the details of the brutal attack, its aftermath and her eventual arrival in Toronto. There she began to pull together the pieces of her broken life with courage, astonishing resilience and hope.

Just how does one review a book like this?  The Bite of the Mango is probably one of the hardest books to review that I’ve ever read, so please pardon the fact that I may be a little incoherent at times.

I can’t honestly find anything wrong with this book (other than the horrifying fact it’s true).  Mariatu Kamara is a very brave young woman for telling her story with such brutal, unflinching honesty.  Yes, I felt the style was a little too simplistic for my liking but that hardly had an effect on my reading experience.  Sometimes simple is better and I think this was the case with The Bite of the Mango.

The one thing I would have liked more of was background about the civil war.  I understand that Mariatu Kamara had essentially no knowledge of the war at the time, but it would have been nice to hear her thoughts on it as she told the story.  I don’t mean that she should have gone off on a tangent, but maybe some reflections on the war with what she knows now would have been helpful.

Unfortunately, the civil war in Sierra Leone is not well known in the Western world, particularly for young people.  The only reason I even knew of it before picking up this book was because I met a young woman my own age who had lived in a Liberian refugee camp around the same time.  So yes, a little more background would have been nice.  Was the whole narrative confusing without it?  No and maybe it’s just my natural curiosity that would have liked more information.

Really, what else can I say?  If you like memoirs, history or even just well-written nonfiction in general, I’d highly recommend The Bite of the Mango.  You won’t regret picking it up.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

The Beautiful and the Cursed by Page Morgan

The Beautiful and the Cursed by Page Morgan(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

After a bizarre accident, Ingrid Waverly is forced to leave London with her mother and younger sister, Gabby, trading a world full of fancy dresses and society events for the unfamiliar city of Paris.

In Paris there are no grand balls or glittering parties, and, disturbingly, the house Ingrid’s twin brother, Grayson, found for them isn’t a house at all. It’s an abandoned abbey, its roof lined with stone gargoyles that could almost be mistaken for living, breathing creatures.

And Grayson has gone missing.

No one seems to know of his whereabouts but Luc, a devastatingly handsome servant at their new home.

Ingrid is sure her twin isn’t dead—she can feel it deep in her soul—but she knows he’s in grave danger. It will be up to her and Gabby to navigate the twisted path to Grayson, a path that will lead Ingrid on a discovery of dark secrets and otherworldly truths. And she’ll learn that once they are uncovered, they can never again be buried.

[Full disclosure: This was the second of two books I received in the mail from a mystery sender.  As far as I am aware I am not under any obligation to review them for an author and as with every book I read, this is an honest review.]

Honestly, like The Commander’s Desire I’m still not really sure how I feel about this book.  On one hand, I loved the unique mythos of the gargoyles and how they came to be gargoyles.  On the other hand, the plot was rather predictable and at times oddly confusing.  I could connect with some characters and not others.

I’ll start off with my favourite part: the gargoyles themselves.  I’ve never been exposed to any gargoyle mythology outside of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney version) so this was a breath of fresh air for me.  I feel like Page Morgan really thought out her gargoyles well and had a reasonably good explanation for how they came to exist and why they must protect their dwellings.  The hierarchy within the gargoyles definitely makes sense if you look at the main types of gargoyles and grotesques in architecture as well.  I really didn’t have any problems with the world-building in this one.

The time period is the turn of the century and the attitudes of the characters generally reflect it.  At the same time, I felt like some of the things Ingrid did were far out of character and certainly were not acceptable for a young lady (no matter how disgraced) at the time.  The way Page Morgan describes her setting immersed me in the history, but it was quite jarring to see such modern attitudes present in many of the characters.  Other than that I really couldn’t spot any historical inaccuracies and the attitude problem requires only a slight suspension of disbelief.

My main problem with the book was the characters.  The point of view wasn’t really consistent and sometimes I had no idea whose point of view I was reading.  I wish the transition between characters was a little smoother because then I wouldn’t have been so confused when there was a lot of action going on.  Some points of view even sound the same (the two sisters on occasion) so that really didn’t help the situation.  Gabby was my least favourite character because she could be such a free spirit one minute and then have such prudish thoughts more in line with the time in the very next chapter.  It’s that kind of inconsistency that annoys me.

All in all, I really can’t complain much about The Beautiful and the Cursed.  It was relatively fast-paced and although it was confusing at times, I got the main gist of the plot.  Would I read the second book in the series?  Probably.  I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy it, but if I found it in the used section I’d certainly give the rest of the series a chance.

I give this book 3.5/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

The Commander’s Desire by Jeanette Green

The Commander's Desire by Jeanette Green(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

Princess Elwytha wants revenge on the monster who murdered her brother. In a false exchange for peace, she offers herself in marriage to the enemy Prince. The plan? Kill the Prince’s battle-scarred Commander-the man who ended King Thor’s life with one filthy sword thrust through the back. To her horror, the Commander agrees to take Elwytha as his bride. Worse, the wedding date will be sooner than expected. Not all is lost, however. Now she has more opportunity to be alone with him-and exact justice. But the deed becomes difficult to carry out. Fighting her innate sense of honor, she begins to see the ironclad integrity of the man behind the scars. And with this knowledge comes doubt. Did he slay her brother? What exactly is the new king’s plan? Whom can she trust? Elwytha must decide well, for more than her life is at stake. Soon she must betray either allegiance to her kingdom-or the man who is quickly claiming her heart.

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Even a week after reading The Commander’s Desire I’m still not really sure what to think of it.  There were good elements and bad elements, so I might as well start with the bad.

The thing I didn’t like was the historical ambiguity.  Sure, Jeanette Green set a time period for the thing but I really didn’t feel immersed in the period.  It seemed like your typical quasi-Medieval TV show, if I’m honest.  There were a few things that seemed true to the time period and almost made me feel like I was there, but Jeanette Green’s style of writing never really pulled me into the history and we sure didn’t get much background on the time.

I had so-so feelings about Elwytha and her relationship with the Commander.  Sometimes their relationship was believable with that sort of push-pull dynamic that would come from being natural enemies.  Sometimes their relationship bordered on ridiculous as Elwytha kept blowing her cover by threatening the Commander and giving him mixed signals.  At times she was ready to kill him and sometimes it was like she was totally in love.  I can understand the hot-cold feelings, but they were present far too often to make it believable or even for me to like Elwytha.  Sure, the reader was told over and over that Elwytha was a fierce warrior on a mission but I never really got that vibe from her.  She just seemed like a wannabe tough girl.

With all that said, I actually didn’t mind The Commander’s Desire.  If you leave out some of the more ridiculous aspects you’re left with a generally sweet romance (if a little predictable) and a reasonably paced plot.  The characters aren’t anything special, but they’re not horrible either.  Basically, this is a mediocre book written in a decent enough style that if it sounds interesting to you I say give it a go!  It won’t hurt.

I give this book 3/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads