Yes it’s real. Apparently it’s not selling well because the venn diagram of “Mr Beast fans” and “people who read” are two circles that just barely touch.

"I never read any books when I was growing up" is a sentence I would definitely keep to myself as an adult.

Maybe I'm too judgy, but my first reaction will probably always be "Yeah, now that you say it it's quite apparent."

TL;DR: talk a bunch of shit about James Patterson, but the dude puts his money where his mouth is.

My partner is a retired bookseller. There's a lot of history and context over which I'm hand-waving. But Patterson has an annual [thing] wherein he awards a grant to employees of an independent bookstore for that employee's cause du jour. I forget the numbers, but it's significant. Like... life-changing quantities of money relative to the bookseller's position and proposal.

My partner has won the James Patterson annual award for [some things she was getting into before we met] about five (seven?) times. She is assed out and is not responding to my poking her to ask. Patterson has funded things like my partner's hand-painted/drawn shelf-talkers, even if they weren't for his books. Patterson funded my partner's friend's launch of an independent bookstore.

Hate on Patterson all you want (oh... and I do). But the dude really gives back.

Saw some people go through it and it has pretty much all the markers for shitty AI writing. Em-dashes, 'it's not just x, it's y', rules of three, everything. It's AI slop.

Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt

Tbf he has a point. Getting to read something you like vs having to for an assignment can be very souring.

Can't be worse than teens reading the fountain head either.

I'm convinced that James Patterson isn't a real author. I was a huge fan of Maximum Ride as a teenager. Honestly, looking back, it had the obvious fingerprints of a team of ghostwriters all over it. A disjointed plot that just kept going, ballooning plotholes, forgotten powers and abilities. Hell, the main character's hair even changed color for no apparent reason.

He's always been just a cheap brand.

I don't know if this is real, but James Patterson is known for partnering with famous people to write books with them. My impression (guess) is that he does the writing while they provide inspiration. I read both the books he did with Bill Clinton. The first one was okay. The second one was forgettable. Or maybe it was the other way around. I can't recall which was which. Maybe they were both mid at best?

He's done a few that had me curious. I just don't find his writing to be all that great. The story can hook you, but if you forget it shortly after, did it really make an impact?

Also, I don't fault MrBeast for saying books were boring growing up. They didn't pick fun books in anybody's school, I believe. We were not taught to enjoy books. We were taught to enjoy movies and video games. We were taught that books were boring. That's a failing of our education.

It is: status/2094837479861792791
I recommend the original although:

I don't think I've seen a book written by just Paterson in a long while. It's all co-writes.

It is the best seller in amazon's Men's Adventure Fiction.

I love the comment, I hope it is satire.

Is it yet another ripoff of squid game?

I wish he wrote more in the Daniel X series that first one was one of my favorite sci fi books of all time growing up.