A Bit About Book Reviews

I've recently read a bunch of comments on forums and groups about the content in book reviews. I write book reviews, and I also write books, so I understand what prompts concerns. The public reviewers that I find on the book-sale sites often offer glowing recommendations to the point of disbelief. When I see the same reviewers constantly giving five-stars, I wonder: 1) are they being paid? and 2) do they truly read the book? Or perhaps, they only want to give praise, and never post about books they didn't absolutely love.

As a writer, I grin when seeing five-star reviews on my works, but I also like to read the less flattering reviews—a chance to learn something I can fix in other things I write. But then, there are reviewers who are terse and rude. Not fun to read—neither on my book page nor someone else's.

I also review books, and I try to be objective when I do so. But writing a book review is like trying to review of a chef salad. You can take parts of it and make comments: the dressing was too tart, the mild cheeses—very good, the lettuces could have been more crisp and I wanted more radicchio. Then you sum it all up to a total of some kind. That total is a whim of the salad eater. Some people don’t like radicchio, and other like their cheeses more aged.

Here's what I look for in a salad—er—book. I grade on a five-point scale for 1) originality: is this a typical genre story or does it offer something new and different?; 2) character development: consistency for each character in voice, emotions and description with each character being distinctive; 3) pace and story flow: as in a salad, I like it when the tart is offset by the sweet, the crunch with the smooth, and when it's all relative to the whole; 4) edits and format: grammar, spelling and sentence structure must be correct and word-choice appropriate for the scenes; the layout (this especially in electronic editions) should allow the reader to progress through the book without a hitch.

I don't read a book, thinking critically about these elements. Usually the negatives sort of jump up and slap me (inaccurate spelling and grammar, rough transitions, head-hopping). Some readers can breeze right by these things that I consider imperfections, but I'm also and editor, so I see all this stuff. Parts of a book that I delight in, usually come to me after I've finished reading the whole piece. I sit back and I think, that was nicely done.

When I write the review, I give a thumbnail of the plot and avoid spoilers. I try to address each of the elements I think important, and if I criticize, I like to explain why. For review readers, particularly the authors, I hope they remember that what I write is a single opinion. Let's face it, if everyone liked the same thing the same way, reading books would be pretty boring.

Here are a related articles I posted a while back on my Get It Together blog: Writing a Book Review, and Criticism Can Sting
You can find a list of reviews I've posted on this blog by clicking "book reviews" in the labels (right side).