Friday, December 20, 2013

To review or not to review

This week Goodreads sent me a notice that I had read 48 books this past year. I hadn't been keeping track of books read, but I thought the number seemed low. After a moment's thought, I realized it meant the number of books reviewed on the Goodreads site. I did, in fact, read many more.

There are lots of reasons for not posting a review on Goodreads or Amazon or Librarything, or any of a number of sites set up for readers to find books. Sometimes I pick up a book that can only be found overseas or is so well known that it doesn't need a review from me, such as something by Charles Dickens. But sometimes I pick up a book recommended by someone else and read it even though it's outside my comfort zone. It's just not the kind of book I'm interested in. This is what happened to me recently.

I've heard about a certain author and knew he was wildly successful, so I wanted to see what he wrote and how he went about telling a story. I found a book from his earlier years and settled in to learn as well as enjoy the story. About half way through I had to decide if I would finish the book or not. After a minute I decided I would. I had come this far and would see it through to the end. There was no question about the quality of the story telling. This writer can set up a story and keep it moving forward, page after page. But I knew how it would end. And I also knew I wouldn't review it.

I understand that all of us as writers are tied to our time and place in history. As forward thinking as we like to believe we are, at some point in the future someone is going to find the blindspot in our thinking. We belong to our time. I warn readers about this when they pick up a book from a favorite writer from the 1930s and 1940s who is new to them and later complain about the author's prejudices. Agatha Christie was mostly of her time, as were many other writers in the so-called Golden Age. But what about someone writing in the 1960s up to the present?

The book I decided not to review was one in which a young woman died unnecessarily and unpleasantly, and another woman, who had absolutely nothing to do with the crime except that she was married to the intended victim, was put through a humiliating and, in all honesty, a male fantasy of rape. It wasn't necessary for the story.

This kind of writing, despite the great success of the writer, says to me "lazy thinking." Yes, it's a way to heighten the tension, and yes, it's a way to keep readers reading, but no, it's not necessary to abuse women to keep the story going and keep the reader interested. It's certainly not the only way, considering the number of successful women writers who manage to do it, such as Sara Paretsky.

I didn't bother posting a review of this book and I doubt the author would care either way. I don't want to say anything positive about a story that in the end I found revolting enough in some aspects to ruin the entire story for me. But thanks to this one book, I have became much more skeptical of writers who claim their plot devices are necessary and much more likely to interpret their work as superficial and based on shortcuts.

13 comments:

  1. I don't review every book I read either. Sometimes it's because as you observe, a book is simply one that we don't like. But as a writer myself, I am sensitive to the feelings of other authors.

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    1. Thank you for this comment, Jacquie. For a while I wondered if I should ignore my feelings and just post whatever I had to say, but I'm glad to see so many comments that agree with my instinct. It's not an easy question.

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  2. Hi, Susan. I found this an interesting post. I review a few books every year, and on Goodreads I put up stars for the books I've read, but not always a review. I only post an unfavorable review of books that are way up there near or at the top of the bestseller lists so I can tell future potential readers what I didn't like about the book. One recent one was full of coincidences, and near the end had such a huge one with most of the main characters involved that it just became too much for me. If the writer is not well-known, though, I don't post a review at all if I can't give it at least three stars. And for those I like, as you do, I don't bother posting reviews for books that already have hundreds, but will gladly post a good review for authors who haven't had many as yet.

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    1. Jan, I think you've encapsulated much of what I was thinking about different kinds of books and my feelings about them. I'm just glad I wasn't reviewing the book for a magazine, which expected something no matter how I felt. Then I would have been in a bind. Thanks for your comment.

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  3. When I first jumped into the world of Goodreads, I was eager to give "honest" reviews of everything I read. I hope I have matured a little, and take the approach that if I haven't got anything nice to say, to keep my opinion to myself - except as Jan said when the author won't be damaged by my review.

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  4. It's interesting how we evolve as reviewers. I too started out thinking I had to be honest about everything (I must have been very annoying), and now I find I want my review to be responsible. And I won't try to define that now. Thanks for your comment.

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  5. Reading, reviewing, and writing are all subjective. I've listed books on Goodreads without any stars at all, and some with stars but no comments - mostly just to keep my log of books read. And we do change as readers and writers and reviewers. My husband and I are now revising two books that long ago were with a small press. Part of the revision process involves removing much of the profanity. There wasn't a ton of it, but there's more than I'm comfortable with now because I think it isn't truly relevant to characterization or plot.

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  6. I haven't posted books on GR without reviews, but I may start, with the same purpose as you describe. Thanks for commenting, and you've given me an idea for my next post--revising.

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  7. Hi Susan, found your post in DorothyL and thought this looked like an interesting topic. Indeed, it is a tough call. I do reviews for Examiner.com. Sometimes I'll post those to GR, sometimes not. There have been books I didn't particularly like, but can usually find something positive. If it's not character, maybe it's setting. If not plot, maybe something else. I try to make the review as objective as possible, pointing out the good things and bad about a book. After all, what I may find tedious, someone else would find fascinating. My hope is not to convey my "judgement" on a book, but an analysis so others can decide for themselves if the book is for them or not. The more I like a book, the easier this is to do. Sometimes, I have to dig deep. And there have been a few I didn't review because I was having to dig too deep!

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    1. Hi, Terry, Thank you for commenting. Yes, it's a conundrum for many of us who want to write responsible reviews and have been reviewing for years. I also try to convey the nature of the book without my judgment coloring the entire review, and I hope I've learned a lot about how to be fair to the writer as well as fair to the prospective buyer/reader.

      I haven't heard of Examiner.com, but am glad to learn about it. I have a book coming out in May 2014, the third in the Anita Ray mystery series from FiveStar/Gale Cengage, and I'm just now putting together my reviewer list.

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  8. Thanks for this thoughtful essay, Susan, and I, too, would/will never consider reviewing a book that I don't like or feel is poorly written. Sometimes this is hard when it's, say, a book written by a close friend. Now and that has happened, and I've looked for good, clear writing, richness of language, in-depth characters, et al,--and if I find enough of that, I'll review it.

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  9. Thank you for your comment, Nancy. I've found the responses to this post very encouraging. I guess the more we write and publish, the more sensitive we become to other writers and try to be fair to their efforts. I too look for something positive to say in whatever I'm reviewing.

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  10. Thank you for your comment, Nancy. I've found the responses to this post very encouraging. I guess the more we write and publish, the more sensitive we become to other writers and try to be fair to their efforts. I too look for something positive to say in whatever I'm reviewing.

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