remaininhislove

How honest should a book reviewer get? It’s a question I deal with on a regular basis. Honesty is certainly appreciated when reading book reviews…especially if the novel is poorly written, but you have to be careful not to cross that thin line between honesty and just plain meanness. Here are some steps on how to do so:

1) Don’t review everything you read. I read approximately seven novels a week. I do not review all of those novels. If I didn’t like a book, I simply do not review it. I am not going to feel a review with a bunch of negative things. As I read novels, I mentally begin to review them, if I find that the negatives outweigh the positives, then I don’t review the novel. I’m one of those people who feel like if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it all.

2) Start with the good things. Sometimes I read a book and there are really good parts mixed in with some negatives. Praise the good parts, mention the bad parts, but downplay them and then go back to the good parts. The reader is not stupid, she/he will understand that the novel was good, but not perfect.

3) Say the negative things nicely. I recently did a review for a book that praised the good things and mentioned the bad parts, but I felt like one line in my review didn’t handle the negative things nicely. It was too blunt, and if I were an author, it might have hurt my feelings. I had to go back and delete (or rework) that line. The English vocabulary is filled with ways to say things creatively and still get the same meaning across.

4) Be mindful that those authors often read these book reviews. On a number of occasions the very authors of the novels of my reviews will comment on this blog. I do my best to remember that with each and every review I write. Authors put a lot of time and effort (and often prayer) into each novel they write,  and for you to read the fruit of their writing and excoriate it is ridiculous. Especially if you’ve never written a thing in your life.

5) Be Honest. At the end of the day you must be honest. In order to be a trustworthy book reviewer, you must state whether or not there was something to dislike about the book. You should not praise a book simply because you like the authors other novels, or everyone else likes that book. Oftentimes you will find that you are not alone. I personally don’t put a whole lot of stock in recommendations by authors. I do not think they’re lieing, but I do think they are friends and perhaps a bit biased unless the recommendation speaks to specifics. You don’t want to be lumped in that category as someone who likes all books and all things because then there is no point in asking your opinion.

Anyone have anything else to add? Don’t agree?

I once read somewhere that reviews are currently what sales books. Yet, reviews are always subjective, what one person likes another person may hate and vice versa. So why are reviews important and how should you treat them?

1) Reviews indicate how popular a book is. If I have just enough money to purchase one novel and I’m not looking for something in particular, quite often the number of reviews on Amazon tell me whether something is worth looking at. Even if that novel has something like 4 stars, if 100 people have read it, apparently there was something in it that people liked. I will more often than not read it. Case in point, Hunger Games. The novel sounded silly to me, but since all those people had read it, I figured there must be something intriguing about it.

2) Reviews can speak to what you like/don’t like. There are some books that get 4 stars for reasons that would totally make me buy a novel or 5 stars that would make me put a novel down. Oftentimes, when I am looking for a book, I will go for the poorest reviews and make sure its not something that states “the quality was poor on my kindle” or “I didn’t know it was a Christian novel.”

3) Reviews can show you what is out there. On my blog, I have intentionally categorized the book by their topics: historical, suspense, YA, etc. because sometimes the mood hits and you just want a historical and one that is good. It helps to have a reviewer who has read a number of them and you can sift through them to find the review that is attractive to you.

4) Treat reviews with a grain of salt. I read three reviewers regularly. One of them has taste like mine, if she recommends a book, I know it’s good. Another of them doesn’t have taste like mine, yet she reads enough books that I value her opinion when it is given. Another reviewer I read, gives pretty generic reviews, but again she reads so many books out there that it is helpful to me to see what is popular.

5) Treat them as introductions. Keep an open mind. I know my goal as a reviewer is to introduce readers to familiar authors and authors that people may not come into contact with at the bookstore. There is a lot of self-publishing out there. Some of it is GOOD. My goal is to find the GOOD and the GREAT.

Anyone else have any reasons as to the importance of reviews?