Updated: Dec 16, 2020
Previously, nobody asked us what we wanted to receive as a gift. Our parents knew better what we needed - clothes, shoes, and the like. Gifts weren't lying in the corner without any use. My parents knew that I was always happy with a new book and anything else they could afford. They bought the books in brick and mortar stores and paid cash for them. While I was still in kindergarten, sometimes during cold winter evenings, I sat with my mom in front of an open fire and repaired the old books - I smeared glue with a brush, and she glued it evenly to the dilapidated spines. We never threw books away. My parents taught me respect for the people who wrote them or/and published them. And, of course, those were the books of the classics. The classics were like Gods. They were kept neatly on bookshelves, and nobody (I hope) ate sandwiches on them. These were centuries tested books. Books you could trust because the authors knew everything about their characters - no doubt! - they wrote in the unpopular third-person omniscient. You can boo those authors now, but they were good then, and they're still good now despite popular opinion.
Once I was at a presentation of a book and left disappointed. The audience asked the author questions about his personas, and he couldn't even answer half of them. When one student asked: Why did your heroine decide to have an abortion? - the author's reply was: I don't know. Maybe, you should ask her. That was disappointing, not to mention shocking for me. Often, contemporary writers, chasing after popularity, overdose on the high-demanded POV. Or perhaps they forget to think through the back story? Or maybe they just don't attach any importance to it, although the back story shows how well developed the character is. Just as there is no story without a person, there is also no person without the story. Why was the author not aware of why his heroine had an abortion? That was a big decision, perhaps, one that has changed her entire life. And why did he tell us about it in the first place? Let's respect our characters, whether they are protagonists or antagonists - it doesn't matter.
https://www.amazon.com/KILLING-YOUR-BEST-FRIEND-Mystery/dp/B08CN4L5ZL/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
