Book Buzz: Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson
“Bad Words didn’t have a single moment of inspiration! It sort of congealed over many years in book publishing, and I shaped it around a lot of elements I find fun to write and think about. I love a frightening critic character, and I love two characters in diametric opposition being forced to reevaluate each other. I also think it’s an underdiscussed and bonkers fact that the quiet agreement of professional criticism is that, someday, you will become the sworn enemy of somebody in your very small artistic industry, because you can’t like every book.”
― Ríoghnach Robinson, Interview, She Reads
What booksellers are saying about Bad Words
- Smart. Well-written. Couldn’t put it down. Well-developed characters who are multi-dimensional. This is a fantastic take on a romance. For readers of romance, books about books, anyone who loves a look inside the publishing industry. Poses so many interesting questions about the book industry and what readers want from it, what writers want too.
― Christina The Snail on the Wall, Huntsville, Alabama | BUY
- Beautifully written and gut-wrenchingly messy, with so much to say about the art of criticism, the publishing industry, and—of course—love. This is my favorite book I’ve read so far this year, and I can’t wait to share it with other readers!
― Bronte, The Bookshop, Nashville, Tennessee | BUY
- I am so completely floored by this book. It’s the kind of book that, for me, makes me remember why I love reading so much. I would look up from a chapter and see the world in brighter colors.
― Writers Block Bookstore, Winter Park, FLorida | BUY
- I can feel it in my bones, this book is going to be big. And it deserves to be. Bad Words is a startling, propulsive look at why we create, why we critique, and the deeply tenuous landscape of publishing, all told through the perspectives of a feuding author and book critic.
― Taylor, Baldwin & Co., New Orleans, Louisiana | BUY
About Ríoghnach Robinson
Ríoghnach (pronounced ree-uh-nock) Robinson is the author of six YA novels published under the pen name Riley Redgate, most recently Come Home to My Heart. Her books have been published on four continents, optioned for film and TV, and named to best-of-the-year lists by ALA, Kirkus Reviews, and the New York Public Library. She is also the writer of the WEBTOON Originals series Angel of Death and has written for The Onion, America’s Finest News Source. Bad Words is her adult debut. You can find her on Instagram at @rileyredgate and @rioghnachrobinson.
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“I think we have been embarrassed by the idea of children’s fiction since children’s fiction began. Martin Amis famously said, ‘People ask me if I ever write a children’s book, and I say, ‘if I had a serious brain injury, then I might write a children’s book.’ But my argument would be not only the children deserve a very finest work, because every time you write for a child, you might be writing someone for whom you are the first book they have ever read in its entirety, but also the greatest children’s books can speak to us about huge themes like power, endurance, fear, faith, care, love, doubt, passion.” 
