Talk:Handbook for Mortals

Neutrality

Sections of this article read as biased against the book's author.

• Background information seems to be presented with an agenda (why is it necessary to specify that the book's author once played a prostitute in a film?)
• "Zade is a Mary Sue self-insert" is written as if it were a fact rather than a subjective judgement, and furthermore is irrelevant to the plot summary section in which it's found
• Phrasing seems mean-spirited in places, as in "Sarem announced Handbook for Mortals, with premature optimism, as the first of a five-book series." (emphasis mine) Epirhoic (talk) 06:28, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
  • There is no "agenda" (what agenda, exactly??) in pointing out that Sarem played a prostitute in a film. That is one of the only films that she's actually been credited in by name, making the role significant. Whether the character is a prostitute or not is unintended as any form of judgment. It's simply the most significant role she's played thus far. Considering that the character Roxy is completely fictional, it's highly unlikely that anyone would take it as a reflection upon Sarem as a person.
  • "Mary Sue" and "self-insert" are not insults in this context. They are actually, if you look into their meaning, technical terms in contemporary writing to describe character traits.
  • "Premature optimism" is not an insult, either. It's a fact. Sarem's announcement was indeed premature, as no follow-up books in the series were ever published. If this changes at any point in the future, then the article's statement could easily be changed to reflect new developments in Sarem's series.

  PetSematary182 (talk) 21:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

No reason to question neutrality

Neutrality is really in question when the author blatantly participated in inflating their sale numbers? 68.75.12.197 (talk) 10:23, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• My thoughts exactly. I don't see anything biased or non-factual in this article. PetSematary182 (talk) 19:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)PetSematary182

Is it time to take the neutrality warning off the article?

This neutrality warning is posted on the top of the article, but as far as can be determined, there's no issue of bias or partiality. The talk page has gone dead. Is it time to take the warning off the article yet, or no?? PetSematary182 (talk) 15:38, 18 January 2022 (UTC)PetSematary182

Revamped article

I've revamped the article. There were some issues with tone, as there were too many unsourced claims and felt a bit like one of the "you won't believe this happened" blog writeups. It wasn't too overly bad, but just enough to pose an issue on Wikipedia given all of what went down. It's still not 100% great, but it should be OK now.

Other than that, I'm still concerned that this may not be independently notable outside of the NYT controversy, which is already covered on the respective NYT Bestseller page. I've tried to flesh it out with the sourcing as best as possible, so hopefully it'll survive any further scrutiny. The main issue is that almost all of the coverage is in relation to the NYT - there aren't even really any reviews of the book in places Wikipedia would consider usable. I found a review from Armintrout of the screenplay and per her words it's pretty much exactly what was in the book, but not sure if that would really count here. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 20:25, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Artwork

The artwork allegedly plagiarized for the HFM cover is correctly noted in the article to be Gill Del-Mace's Knife Thrower III. However, the image posted in the article is Del-Mace's Knife Thrower I, a very similar but separate painting. This should probably be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:940:C001:CF90:8457:237C:B82C:B323 (talk) 11:28, 16 January 2024 (UTC)