*Sigh*...I really have thought long and hard about the rating of this book. There has been so much fuss about Orson Scott Card lately, so I won't reiterate the whole boycott thing here (we do have this glorious thing called google you know). And yes like so many others, I too, must get something off my chest.Anyhow, I started reading the book before I found out about his extreme anti-gay stance and so my first experience reading the book was actually very pleasant. It was basically INSTA-LOVE from the get-go. Interesting premise, likeable protagonist, witty dialogue and a great pacing of the story, what more could I ask? And then I found about OSC personal beliefs and I was shocked, especially because I could not (and still cannot) find a single trace of his anti-gay stance in this book. The book actually deals with a lot of important issues, such as bullying, xenophobia etc. and deals with it quite well. And after finish reading it, I must confess that I find myself still liking the book, to such a degree that I would have favourited it, were it not that it was written by OSC. So what the hell do I do with a book that I love, authored by a person whose beliefs are the opposite of mine? What does it supposedly say about me? Am I now automatically supporting his beliefs by loving something he created? It's stupid really that it had never occurred to me that this could happen. I mean, at some point I just kind of naively assumed that awesome books automatically had awesome authors. A lot of other authors (e.g. Robert A. Heinlein and even Tolkien) came up during online discussions of the boycott, and I thought: "How the hell am I even supposed to avoid reading these authors? And do I really want to avoid them?" The answer is: "No I don't want to avoid reading them. I am simply too interested in some of these works." It might be an easy way out, but in the end I decided that I have to separate the work from the author. Not that they are separate things (duh!), but because the one does not necessarily influence the experience of the other. I mean one can (as I have) love the book and dislike the author. It's simple really if you think about it, as it goes the other way around as well (loving the author, hating the book), but people tend to make less fuss about that.So I decided, with regards to OSC, I will only buy second hand books from him and yes I will probably go see the movie (simply because I would love to see the book re-imagined on the big screen), knowing that OSC will get some of the money I'll spend on it, but also knowing that other people who worked hard on this movie but do not share his beliefs, will (hopefully, I actually have no idea how movie cashflows work) also receive some of that. And yes, it will receive five stars, because it is simply a darn good read, but I will probably not favourite it and I will certainly not become a "fan" of OSC on goodreads because of the obvious reasons...Damn, I really wrote that down quickly...*sigh*...if only this would be the case with some of my papers....