My Way or The Highway!

"Never judge a book by it's cover!" I've been warned many a time. Literally speaking.
"Always read the review!" they advise.

So I did. I read the blurgs, and made sure that each book I bought had that 'Read This!' stamp of approval by some big-shot at The New York Times or The Daily Mail.
I applied the same for a new movie release. 5 stars out of 5 meant it fell into the 'Must-not-miss-even-if-you've-got-a-hernia' category.
So I read the book, and did not miss the film; strangely, I was almost always disappointed.

But it makes sense doesn't it..to not agree with the accolade of reviews a book/movie has to it's name. Especially when you realize that the aforementioned recommendations come not from Superman, but from just another ordinary person like yourself. Just another individual with his/her own taste in literature, and his/her own opinion on the newest box-office hit.

How on earth could I have even conceived that a stodgy old man with a penchant for satire would ever approve of a film with light humour or a book of the same? Or that a spoof enthusiast or chick-flick activist would ever consider anything but?

So from here on forth, every book I pull off the shelf I will take into consideration only what I expect of the read. And every movie I choose to catch is 'caught' based solely on what I thought of the promo. At the most I'll regard the viewpoint of someone I've found to have similar taste.
So this way I'll have none to blame but myself (although it's always nice to have someone else to accuse) for that terrible feeling of having just wasted my time on a perfectly useless novel; or of having spent Dhs30 (plus nachos) on a pointless film, when I could've just bought myself a Brownie Sundae at BR instead.

Pfft..so you're Ima Hag from the The Times! I'm Shaahima Fahim of Chronicles of a Testtube!!


Cheers.