A recommendation algorithm gone awry

A friend of mine recommended a book he’d read called The Plot. I didn’t really know what it was about, but his recommendation was enough for me to add it to my list and check it out when it became available.

Pretty soon after I saw the following collection of books at the bottom of my page at the public library.

Recommendations after 'The Plot'

Reckless Hearts, Five Dares, and Love in Play looked quite a bit more overtly racy than I’d expected. I was starting to wonder what he’d recommended. Maybe he was just messing with me? I really wouldn’t put it past him? Or maybe the algorithm was really, really dumb and trigger on the genre of the author’s other books.

That’s when I saw a whole page of recommendations that were labeled as having been made because I was “interested in The Plot”.

If you’re interested in “The Plot”…

Yeah, that sonofabitch broke my recommendations list for good, I think.