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Sep
11
Weekly Geeks 2009-34: On Reviewing
2009 at 9am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
It’s been a while since I participated in Weekly Geeks (life, work, general busyness), but this week’s topic is relevant to several recent conversations in this here book blogosphere, particularly with BBAW on the horizon, and I just couldn’t pass it up.
Shannon Hale (author of Austenland and The Actor and the Housewife, as well as many other books) recently posted on her blog about reviewing books.
At the end of her post, Ms. Hale posed six questions for those who review books on their blogs or other sites.
Do you find that the anticipation of reviewing the book has changed your reading experience?
Yes. How could it not? Reviewing has made me a more thoughtful, careful reader. I’ve always tended to pay attention to subtext, symbolism, literary devices, and the like when reading, but I do it much more consistently now that I now I will be writing about every book I read. I underline important passages and make notes as I read, and I find that I call on my English major skills and process the book as I read it instead of just plowing through and processing it all at the end.
Are you rating the book even as you read? Or do you wait until the end to sum it all up?
I don’t make any final decisions about rating until the end, but do a lot of thinking about the book as I read. I think about how I’m going to describe the book, what other books it might remind me of, who the ideal reader is, and who the author intended to be his or her primary audience. I think about what the author is setting out to do and whether he or she succeeds in doing so. I make note of the highlights and weak points (if any), then I go back through all of my notes and highlighted passages at the end to pull it all together. Because I work in a bookstore, I have countless opportunities to talk about what I’m reading, and I find that those conversations often help me understand how I’m feeling about a book more clearly.
Does knowing you’ll be reviewing it (or rating it) publicly affect which books you pick up in the first place?
I don’t think so. Reading time is precious and limited, so I always try to choose books I think I’m going to enjoy. Life is too short to read bad books! I’ve always tried to have a nice balance of fiction and nonfiction in my reading diet, and I strive to maintain that on my blog as well.
The only way that blogging really affects my reading choices is when it comes to bestsellers and buzzed-about books. I don’t usually go for the mass appeal, heavy-on-the-plot-and-short-on-everything-else books, but when there’s an ongoing conversation I’d like to be a part of, and to which I might contribute a unique opinion or a different perspective, I might pick up the book anyway.
Case in point: I don’t really like Dan Brown, but there’s going to be a lot of chatter about The Lost Symbol next week. As a bookseller, I like to read biggies like this so I can discuss them with customers (same reason I suffered through the Twilight series) and present an informed opinion. As a blogger, my take on the book might be different from many others, so it will make for good discussion.
Does the process of writing the review itself change how you felt about the book?
Sometimes. By the time I sit down to write a review, I’ve already spent a day or two thinking about my reaction to a book, and I’ve gone back through all of my notes and highlighted passages, so I generally have a good idea of how I felt about it. But every now and then, I’ll find myself writing something about the book and thinking, “Oh, I don’t think I thought of that before.” Putting my thoughts into words is the last step in processing a book, and though I wouldn’t say the processes changes how I felt about a book, I would say it gives me a deeper understanding.
What is your motivation to assign a rating to a book and declare it to the world?
I think ratings are a kind of shorthand. I prefer to read the full review of a book, but if I don’t have time, and I know the blogger or reviewer’s general style and taste, I can use the rating as a quick way to get his or her perspective.
Ratings and reviews are, by nature, subjective. Ratings are the “quick and dirty” way of doing what I do in my reviews, saying “here’s how I would boil it down.” Readers who know me and frequent my blog will know what that means. Without that context, a rating by itself doesn’t tell you much (which is why I don’t pay attention to ratings on Amazon or bookstore websites).
I also like ratings for my personal use. If it’s been a while since I read a book, I can still see how I rated it and compare that to other ratings to help determine future reading choices.
If you review a book but don’t rate, why not? What do you feel is your role as reviewer?
I intend to rate everything I review. I know I sometimes forget, but I do endeavor to go back and add the ratings later because I like consistency. I think it’s important.
I think of my role as a reviewer like this: I provide honest, thorough reviews to interested readers. Regardless of whether I love or hate a book, I include quotes and examples from the book to support my perspective. I don’t think it’s enough just to state my opinion. I always try to provide reasons for my reaction to a book, and if I think a book is good but not a good fit for me, I try to make recommendations about the kind of readers who would like it or other books that are similar. I hope my reviews entertain, amuse, inform, and help my readers make decisions that allow them to use their reading time to the best advantage.
Visit Weekly Geeks to join up and check out more bloggers’ perspectives on book reviewing.
No related posts.
I appreciate you more as a reviewer for the fact that you do pick up those books you wouldn’t typically (ie; mass market, etc) so that you can join in on conversation to provide different perspective. As you’ve said reading/reviewing is so subjective we all tend to get into our bubbles and stay there. Having someone come in and pop it allows us to stretch our thoughts out.
Fabulous point!
I agree w/you on many of these point…and don’t care for Dan Brown either. But there’s no way I could talk myself into Twilight. I am aware, however, that I was not Ms. Meyer’s intended audience – and someone has to review that stuff, right?
I enjoyed reading your answers!
Great answers!
Every once in awhile I tell myself to slow down and become a more thoughtful reader, but I have yet to manage it. I never want to put a book down to note a passage, or a word, or what I’m thinking at that point in time.
I love getting swept up in a story, too, and when that happens, I don’t fight it…I just don’t have direct quotes for my review, and that’s OK.
When I read a book for the purpose of writing a review, especially one by a new, yet-to-be-discovered author, I read it with a sense of hope. I’m thrilled when I discover descriptions and bits of dialogue that really work, that are exactly right or are very inventive and take risks.
Likewise, when a book is otherwise very good, I feel a great deal of despair when the plot sags or an important character is presented as a one-dimensional stereotype. In such cases, “what might have been” bothers me more than what’s happening in the plot.
When I put my reviewer hat on, I’m more sensitive to what the writer is trying to do than what the characters are trying to do. I wonder if other reviewers feel this way.
Malcolm
I pretty much ignore ratings given by professional reviewers but I put a lot of faith and trust into my blogging friends and what they highly recommend.
Great answers. I think that you have a really great reviewing style. I read this article right around the time I created my blog and it made me stop and think about what kind of book blog I really wanted to create. I love that you work at a book store – I don’t think I knew this about you before. That sounds like my ideal job, although I like to picture myself actually doing some writing someday. We’ll see … I feel like doing anything with an English major requires confidence in your talent as a writer, which is something I haven’t really developed quite yet. I know that I can write, but I don’t really know if I believe that my writing is good or even really worth reading. Sorry, didn’t mean to get into confessional mode but your post got me thinking … Guess I should take this to my journal!