I like to think that I could praise the good book of someone I personally dislike. I try not to comment on the person, to be insulting, but I have no trouble being insulting to the work.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When a book of mine comes out, I instantly go hunting the net, not for praise, but for criticism, because that's how you learn, from people who don't have to be polite to you.
You are always working on your worst book and your best book at the same time. The praise does not make you write better, and it shouldn't make you write worse, either.
It feels wonderful to get praise from other authors who I admire, but with each new book, my confidence is always the thing I struggle with the most until I start getting positive feedback from readers.
I prefer to praise people and the world rather than criticize them and it.
Hating a book is not unlike hating a person; in fact it's tempting to just go ahead and hate the author personally, by proxy, qua human being, except that I know that would be a mistake.
Like any other person who reads a ton of books, I hate many, many books. Oh, how I hate them. I have performed dramatic readings of the books I hate. I have little hate summaries. I have hate impressions. I can act out, scene by hateful scene, some of these books. I can perform silent hate charades.
I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me.
I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.
What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he condemns, of his own character, information and abilities.
I work really hard at these books, and when colleagues write nasty reviews of them, I take it very personally.