Another Dad story

I read and reviewed The Passage by Justin Cronin a few weeks ago, then loaned it to Dad. Dad's been very hard to please in regard to books recently, so I just asked him to read the first chapter with an open mind. He started reading the book, and was really enjoying it. It turned out, though, that he only liked the first 250 pages. After that, he finished it hoping for a resolution, but got a cliffhanger ending instead.

Well, I tried. And while I'm sorry he didn't like the whole book, I'm not sorry I gave him something to read for a week or so, and I'm certainly not going to change my review.

Today was definitely a Monday at work, and Mom and I weren't going to answer the phone when it rang at lunchtime until Mom noticed it was from Dad. So she picked up, talked to him, then handed the phone to me. I swallowed a bite of salad and said, "No, I haven't charged the battery on the weed-whacker yet." Dad laughed and said I'd better, but that wasn't why he wanted to talk to me. He wants me to go to Amazon and read all of the 1-star reviews for The Passage. In addition to his earlier caveats, he added "That guy doesn't know shit about electricity." I just said that I didn't either, so whatever errors Dad found in the book (and he has the background to find them) didn't bother me. I also told Dad that I'd bought the book because it has an average 3.86 star rating on Goodreads, and that while he's entitled to his opinion, I'm also entitled to mine.

I'm still not sure why Dad wants me to read negative reviews. Does he want to change my opinion? Reinforce his own? Use other people's reviews to express what he thinks but can't articulate? Okay, the last is not very likely, because Dad is good at expressing himself, but I don't know what he will get from me reading those reviews.

For now, it remains an open question.