On Thursday I posted my first book review and I’ve been uneasy ever since. I’ve been thinking about my review and feeling guilty because it was negative. If I’m honest, I practically trashed it and now I feel bad.
In order to write my review I had a look at some reviews on Good Reads and Amazon and there were a mix of positive and negative reviews. Book reviews by authors seem to be more positive while reviews by readers can range from fantastic to cut throat.
I selected a book at random, an author I’ve never read before. As soon as I started reading I knew it was going to get a poor review. Should I have stopped and selected another? What if that wasn’t a great read either? As reviewers are we only supposed to write up reviews on books that were great? Do writers reviewing other authors tend to be too kind? Do I need to be more discerning when I pick a book to review?
As a reader I would like to think that reviewers are first and foremost, honest. I’m spending my money on the book so I want to know if it’s good or not. I don’t want to part with my hard earned cash based on a good review to find the book is actually full of plot holes and spelling mistakes.
As a writer I know how much work we put into a novel and how it feels like one of our babies. A negative review must be heartbreaking, like a personal affront to our reason for living. Does that mean we should not be honest in our opinion when we read a book? I will always try to be supportive of other authors but how can I help them improve if I only praise the positive and ignore the negative?
This whole process has left me with a couple of concerns. The first is I seem to be a reader who is hard to please. I won’t deny it, I like writing that flows without causing me to pause and have to re-read it. I don’t like spelling mistakes, poor grammar or poorly structured sentences and paragraphs. Does this make me a written word nazi? In the opinion of many others, I’m sure it does. Do I need to take is so seriously? After all, reading is supposed to be a pleasurable experience, an escape from real life. I would argue that the points I raised above detract from the pleasure of reading for me so why so I not point them out?
My second concern is what impact my own reviews may have when the time comes for others to review my writing? What will I do when a reader pulls one of my novels to pieces? Will some see it as a chance for retribution if I gave them a negative review in the past? Whatever happens I can tell you one thing, if I give a book five stars you know it’s going to be brilliant.
