Since I’ve been running my forum, I’ve tried to write short reviews of some of my books, especially if I’ve enjoyed them. I encourage other members to do the same, and some of those people now also contribute to the forum’s review blog.
I’m now reaching a point where authors are asking me to take a look at their book, plus Headline publishers have been sending us quite a selection to review. This is something I really like doing, but it’s making me look seriously at how I do it.
I have been in contact with quite a few writers and authors over the past couple of years, and have gotten to know a few quite well. I know how passionate they are about what they do, and how much their books mean to them.. and hence also the reviews that those books receive. I’ve realised that every single book has a person behind it, someone who could be hurt by a negative comment.
However, if I’m reviewing books, then surely I owe it to the potential reader to be honest with my thoughts too. Right? If I enjoy a book, then I also take pleasure from helping to promote it, and it’s author.. but that isn’t my main role.
But.. neither is my role to provide purely my opinion on the book. I might really dislike it, whereas the next person to read it might love it. We all have different tastes, after all, which is what makes this world so interesting.
I also believe that my reviews do need to have honesty behind them.. if I tell you that every book I review is great, how am I going to point out the ones that I really do feel are great?
So, I’ve come to the conclusion (I think! I ramble, I know!) that I need to develop a style whereas I can describe the book, discuss it’s good and bad points, but do so in a way that lets the reader make up their own mind whether to try it or not. This isn’t all about my reading experience, but also allowing others to decide if it will be a good one for them.
I know a few writers pop by my blog every now and again, and also some readers.. I would really LOVE to know what your feelings are on this. Authors.. would you rather always get nice reviews.. would you ask someone to look at your book if there was a chance the review wouldn’t be glowing? Readers.. what do you want to get out of a review.. are you looking for the reviewer’s personal opinions, or a general feeling about the book? Please do share. 🙂
Michelle, I think you should be honest about what you like and don’t like about a book. I think we all trust you to be fair or we wouldn’t have sent you our books. When I’m asked to judge a contest for aspiring writers, I figure I owe it to them to be honest, or else I’m not being fair to them. That being said I can always think of something good to say. I start with that and then diplomatically tell them what might not work.
I know you can word things diplomatically (as you did in this post) as well, whether it’s to point out that while something about a book might not appeal to you, it might to someone else. 🙂
As long as you’re not mean-spirited (and we know you would never be that) I think you should be as objective as possible but say what you really feel about a book.
Be honest, but if you’re giving a really bad review, do state that it’s only YOUR opinion and try to focus on the few redeeming features it has. Try to say how, why and where it feel down, but also try to pick out points that were better.
Like Raven said, so long as you’re not being mean-spirited or malicious, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t say you didn’t enjoy a book if you didn’t – just say WHY it didn’t ring your bell. You could also perhaps suggest who it might appeal to by comparing it to other, similar books, i.e. “If you liked Such-and-Such, then you might like this, but if that’s not your bag, give ity a miss this time.”
There’s a difference between an honest review and just ripping up up a book. For example, I had a review that said “It’s a good read, just don’t pay attention to the plot.” She was totally honest….and right.
Clearly, I didn’t give her a straightforward plot.
Snark reviews are about being amusing in saying how bad a book is. Honest reviews state the positive and negative aspects, just as you suggested.
It isn’t easy to hear my books are’t perfect. But then again, I don’t want reviewers to only rave about the books they write about.
I think your plan is an excellent one. Bad reviews are part of the business. So are good ones.
And like you said, it’s YOUR OPINION. Readers will judge for themselves whether they agree.
Michelle, just so you know, all of your reviews that I’ve read have seemed very fair and honest. When I write my reviews, I try to list the good and the bad, especially if the bad is something that I felt detracted from the story. I think that every author out there knows that reviews are coming, good or bad, and Jennifer’s right…there’s a huge difference between ripping a book apart just for the fun of it, and writing a bad review. All reviews are opinions.
One thing that I try to do is think about the bad and try to see if someone else will actually like it. Just because it’s not my cup of tea doesn’t mean anything…everything appeals so someone. That’s why I make recommendations at the end of every review. I try to see who will like the book.
That sounds like a great thing to be doing. I think as long as you’re honest, people will respect your opinion if you say you dont like something, they should realise that they might do as not everyone has the same tastes.
Raven, I don’t think I could say a bad word about your vampire series if I tried! 🙂
Thank you everyone for your excellent comments.. there are some good points there! 🙂
I have to concur with everyone on this, Michelle. If you’re not honest in your opinion of a particular book, then you’re not being fair to either the potential reader or to the author.
If a book is really bad, as in a “wall-banger”, you might want to contact the author privately and tell them you didn’t like the book at all, then offer them the opportunity to decline a published review.
Otherwise, just be your usual tactful self and say what you liked about the book and what you didn’t like. Then like Kell said, add the disclaimer that it’s only “your” opinion and others who read the book may feel quite differently.
You’ve read some of my work and you’ve always been honest about what you liked, what bothered you and I’ve never felt anything other than gratitude that you were honest enough to point out flaws that I, being the author, failed to notice.
Congratulations, btw on the success of your work. That’s great…you might be as famous as Roger Ebert someday. 🙂
That’s the other thing, Cindy.. I don’t actually feel that my reviews are that good.. as in, I don’t seem to have the ‘way with words’ that other reviewers do. That’s one of the reasons I love the review blog we do, in conjunction with the forum.. there are a great selection of people, all with varying tastes.. so it’s not just *me* all the time. It also means that Headline had a nice ‘pool’ of people to send out to.. I think it’s been a nice partnership. 🙂
Great post – it’s really interesting to read something from a reviewer’s perspective!
From what you say, I think you’ve got the balance right – you are a reviewer, not involved with the PR bandwagon, so you don’t owe the publishers (or authors) anything. To build up a rapport with your reader, you need to be honest so that they can develop trust in you, but a good review (in my eyes) is honest without being unnecessarily cruel.
What’s annoying for me, as an author, is when a reviewer writes off a book because they dislike a character. For instance, someone gave me a real slagging on Amazon because they thought my main character was immoral – well, that’s kind of the point of the book! You’re not necessarily meant to agree with everything she says and does…
So that wound me up as an unfair review. If she’d had an issue with the plot or the style of writing, I could have accepted that (maybe even agreed!) but….
Anyway, that’s by the by. The fact you’ve thought so long and hard about this speaks volumes – I wish other reviewers would be so thoughtful!
I’ve never done reviews before, but man, Lucy, that was way harsh of that reader. I’ve read characters in books that were off-putting, but it didn’t make me hate the story as a whole.
It would have been much kinder to you and more informative to the other readers if this reviewer had said she personally found the character immorality to impede her ability to enjoy the book. And others may feel differently about that character.
I’ve read many a series where the villain in one is the redeemed hero of the next. 🙂
Michelle, don’t think so negatively…you DO have a way with words…if you didn’t you wouldn’t be as successful as you are! ((hugs))
Yep Lucy, I’ve seen that review! As I tried to say in mine, I didn’t agree with what Sadie did, but I *could* understand where she was coming from.. and it was that, in my opinion, that made your writing stand out for me. All your other Amazon reviews are great, so forget about that one! :cD
Not sure you need yet ANOTHER author opinion here, and what I say is not much different than what has already been said. You’re not a mean spirited individual, so there’s no worries there. Authors love to hear when someone enjoys their work–praise what you enjoyed and if something in the story didn’t work for you and caused you an obvious hiccup through the read, consider mentioning it. Someone else may not notice whatever it is, while yet another person may agree with you. One thing I despise that reviewers do: recap the story. FIve paragraphs of recap and one para of review. I’d like to see no recap ( that’s what the blurb is for–provided on most sites by the publisher ) and more emphasis on the review.
I completely agree Katherine, that writing a review is not about recapping the story, although I do think quoting the ‘blurb’ at the beginning is useful, in case the reader does not have time to search out the publisher’s site.
As a reader, I like to discover the story in the way the author intended, not be given most of it in a review. I’ve also seem some endings given away, which is very frustrating!
This is a very interesting topic.
I’ve been writing reviews for a while now (previously on my LJs and more recently on my reading blog) and to be honest with you I’ve always written them more for my own sake rather than anyone else’s. I mean yes it’s nice if other people read them, but I initially started writing reviews as a way for me to keep track of the books I read and my reasons for either liking them or not and that’s the reason why I’ve continued and why I try to be as honest as possible.
I’ve always been fairly honest when writing my reviews with regard to the positives and the negatives because like others have already said what’s the point of writing them if you’re just going to gush about each one regardless of how you really feel about them. However saying that I’d hate to think that I’d offend an author who has put their heart and soul into their work and if I ever have then I apologise but that has never been my intention. I think most people know that when they read a review, it’s not necessarily going to be the view of everyone and I think that’s what makes things interesting. Negative points to one person might be positives for another and if that gets a discussion going over it then great.
I’m in contact with a few published authors and they all seem to welcome feedback – good and bad – and understand that not everyone is going to love everything about their books. If we did then it would be a very dull world.
Michelle I think you have a fantastic way with words and I love your reviews.
Good reviews are a fabulous ego-boost, and they give me useful quotes for my website. And obviously I want everyone to like my books, so good reviews are what I always hope for!
However, if I suspect that a reviewer always says nice things about books, then the nice review s/he gave me loses most of its meaning.
I don’t want a spiteful review–one that quotes bits of the book out of context in order to make fun of it, for instance, or that makes assumptions about my character (“clearly Imogen is a sex-starved feminazi” or “Imogen was obviously feeling lazy when she wrote this book”). But I’ll take an honest “did not finish” grade over a dishonest “A++” any day.
I don’t really see reviews as feedback for my benefit, either. I have a critique partner, two beta readers and an editor for that. Obviously, sometimes reviews give me really useful things to think about (a consistent criticism is that my stories are too short, which is something I’m very willing to consider changing!), but I don’t think a reviewer has any obligation to make her review useful for me. I think that, if she has any obligation, it’s to the readers.
So if all she can say is “This book left me feeling emotionally unmoved” or “This book is boring” and she can’t articulate the exact reason why, that’s fair enough.
I disagree somewhat with a couple of the other comments. I like reading a short recap of books when I read reviews, so I don’t mind reviews doing that for my books. I’d rather they didn’t give away spoilers, but if they need to in order to talk about the book then, again, that’s fair enough. I do appreciate the courtesy of a spoiler warning or the use of spoiler font, though.
Also, having being turned off books myself because I hated a character, I don’t see it as unfair for a reviewer to express that in a review. I create my characters, after all, just as much as I create my plot. If a reader turns against them because of personal prejudice (“I hate this character because she’s immoral/ I hate this character because he has a stupid name”) that’s obviously very annoying. But as far as I’m concerned, once you’ve bought my book you’re entitled to say pretty much what you like about it!
I have to admit I live in fear of having one of my heroines called a Mary Sue, though…
[…] Posted by Karen under General Ramblings Following on from Michelle’s post the other day about how honest you should be when writing book reviews I’ve managed to get […]