On my goodreads, I gave it a 2 star, and my own review of TSC I gave it a 'Suited-Meh' (which is my channel's equivalent of a 2 star) This book for me had good ways of describing emotion and had a decent pace. But I stopped reading at page 210 I think because I was let down by elongated it felt, the severe lack of world building and lack of character depth. As an aspiring novel/graphic novel writer and artist, despite having self-published one of my first graphic novels as an experiment, I'd think it would be wiser to hone the craft of storytelling. TSC felt a bit rushed out now that I look back on it.
Yeah, I think you're right. Jenna got really big really fast in the authortube community and I can understand how hard it would be not to ride the hype train & push the release for the success of the book financially at the cost of the overall finish of the book. With that in mind I was even considering reading another book by Jenna later down the line because compared to Eve it was an improvement and I like to see authors grow but unfortunately I've heard the overall consensus of The Savior's Sister was that its pointless :/
I think Jenna became a diva due to her success on UA-cam. If you look at her early videos she's much calmer and modest. Later she's got that smiley perky persona and snarky attitude. She had so many fans telling her how great she was she actually started believing the hype. She also got very much it's my way or the highway, and this is the way you do it, and if you don't do it my way, it's wrong.
You're spot on with the "it's my way or the highway" haha. I think the major problem a lot of us have with her channel, once the initial glam and admiration wears off, is that there's no context to her opinions. If she started as a book review channel and cultivated an audience that grew over time understanding her preferences, there wouldn't be so much of a problem. Unfortunately all most of us know upon introduction to Jenna, is her as a professional advice giver.. which doesn't hold up once you scratch the surface. Am I crazy or is there no middle ground in the "Big Name" authortube community? Either someone comes off as really professional and then puts out disappointing books, or they're humble and constantly working on things but we never really see an end product?
@@The_Open_Book I can see a couple of reasons that we never see an end product. One they're really working hard on it and it's a long process. Two after seeing how badly other people get chewed up and then taking second looks at their product they're probably afraid of putting something out there. I thought I had a collection of short stories ready for UA-cam to go and two different people with more experience than me pointed out I need to do more showing and less telling. So I have got to do a lot of rewriting before I can upload it. To be honest, I think a lot of the author tubers would have a hard time getting through a higher level college writing course. On the other hand, Ray Bradbury grew up in the depression and didn't have the money to go to college so he went to the library about three times a week and spent three or four hours there reading, George Orwell didn't attend college and Harlan Ellison, a favorite of mine was told he had no talent and got thrown out of college after attacking a writing teacher.
@@thomasswafford250 That's true, quite a few writers on youtube mention pen names so they must use those when they're actually publishing. I have actively tried to find out Hannah Lee Kidder's other genre penname because regardless of what she writes I feel as though I'd like it and couldn't find anything. Which I understand to a certain extent, if your brand is really different than your writing but it also just feels like a bit of a waste, to cultivate such an invested fanbase and not use that for their book's success? Even if I'm ashamed of my own writing someday, I don't want to hide what I'm doing/what I've done. I'd much rather my viewers just made that journey with me and we could both laugh about how bad my old stuff was 😅 There's definitely something to be said about professional appearance vs qualification tho, for sure!
@@The_Open_Book I used to take Martial Arts. A gi and a Black Belt isn't proof that someone can defend themselves in an actual fight. I haven't published yet, but I already have a fan base. I used to run off copies of my stuff to people at work while I was working. Now I have people I know that either print off copies and hand to them or send them via the Internet. The nice thing is by the time I get my book ready to download or buy I will already have a fair amount of people who are waiting for it.
@@thomasswafford250 wow that's awesome! I took karate as a kid but only got to orange. Karate is a great analogy for the qualifications people place value on but aren't totally standardized (belts vs book sales). We can all write but it's really up to us and who we support to define what quality writing really is. That's also really great you've got people waiting to support your writing :) my town doesn't even have a book store anymore so if I ordered some of my stuff odds are I'd have no one to interest with it 🫠
On my goodreads, I gave it a 2 star, and my own review of TSC I gave it a 'Suited-Meh' (which is my channel's equivalent of a 2 star)
This book for me had good ways of describing emotion and had a decent pace.
But I stopped reading at page 210 I think because I was let down by elongated it felt, the severe lack of world building and lack of character depth.
As an aspiring novel/graphic novel writer and artist, despite having self-published one of my first graphic novels as an experiment, I'd think it would be wiser to hone the craft of storytelling. TSC felt a bit rushed out now that I look back on it.
Yeah, I think you're right. Jenna got really big really fast in the authortube community and I can understand how hard it would be not to ride the hype train & push the release for the success of the book financially at the cost of the overall finish of the book.
With that in mind I was even considering reading another book by Jenna later down the line because compared to Eve it was an improvement and I like to see authors grow but unfortunately I've heard the overall consensus of The Savior's Sister was that its pointless :/
I think Jenna became a diva due to her success on UA-cam. If you look at her early videos she's much calmer and modest. Later she's got that smiley perky persona and snarky attitude. She had so many fans telling her how great she was she actually started believing the hype. She also got very much it's my way or the highway, and this is the way you do it, and if you don't do it my way, it's wrong.
You're spot on with the "it's my way or the highway" haha. I think the major problem a lot of us have with her channel, once the initial glam and admiration wears off, is that there's no context to her opinions. If she started as a book review channel and cultivated an audience that grew over time understanding her preferences, there wouldn't be so much of a problem. Unfortunately all most of us know upon introduction to Jenna, is her as a professional advice giver.. which doesn't hold up once you scratch the surface.
Am I crazy or is there no middle ground in the "Big Name" authortube community? Either someone comes off as really professional and then puts out disappointing books, or they're humble and constantly working on things but we never really see an end product?
@@The_Open_Book I can see a couple of reasons that we never see an end product. One they're really working hard on it and it's a long process. Two after seeing how badly other people get chewed up and then taking second looks at their product they're probably afraid of putting something out there. I thought I had a collection of short stories ready for UA-cam to go and two different people with more experience than me pointed out I need to do more showing and less telling. So I have got to do a lot of rewriting before I can upload it. To be honest, I think a lot of the author tubers would have a hard time getting through a higher level college writing course. On the other hand, Ray Bradbury grew up in the depression and didn't have the money to go to college so he went to the library about three times a week and spent three or four hours there reading, George Orwell didn't attend college and Harlan Ellison, a favorite of mine was told he had no talent and got thrown out of college after attacking a writing teacher.
@@thomasswafford250 That's true, quite a few writers on youtube mention pen names so they must use those when they're actually publishing. I have actively tried to find out Hannah Lee Kidder's other genre penname because regardless of what she writes I feel as though I'd like it and couldn't find anything.
Which I understand to a certain extent, if your brand is really different than your writing but it also just feels like a bit of a waste, to cultivate such an invested fanbase and not use that for their book's success?
Even if I'm ashamed of my own writing someday, I don't want to hide what I'm doing/what I've done. I'd much rather my viewers just made that journey with me and we could both laugh about how bad my old stuff was 😅
There's definitely something to be said about professional appearance vs qualification tho, for sure!
@@The_Open_Book I used to take Martial Arts. A gi and a Black Belt isn't proof that someone can defend themselves in an actual fight. I haven't published yet, but I already have a fan base. I used to run off copies of my stuff to people at work while I was working. Now I have people I know that either print off copies and hand to them or send them via the Internet. The nice thing is by the time I get my book ready to download or buy I will already have a fair amount of people who are waiting for it.
@@thomasswafford250 wow that's awesome! I took karate as a kid but only got to orange. Karate is a great analogy for the qualifications people place value on but aren't totally standardized (belts vs book sales).
We can all write but it's really up to us and who we support to define what quality writing really is.
That's also really great you've got people waiting to support your writing :) my town doesn't even have a book store anymore so if I ordered some of my stuff odds are I'd have no one to interest with it 🫠