To Review, or Not To Review?

I’m an avid reader, devouring 6 books each month on average, and also an occasional book reviewer ... on this blog, on Goodreads and on Amazon.

But I'm also a writer (of non-fiction). Is it fair for authors to review other authors? Through our greater awareness of a writer's craft, do we ruin the magic for the wider reading public? These two questions, originally posed on Kristen Lamb’s blog, made me think.

Certain themes which emerged from the online discussion of Kristen’s topic resonated with me – that respect for the feelings of all concerned is important, and that all successful books (including non-fiction books) somehow need to engage the reader’s imagination, regardless of any technical flaws.

I've reviewed a number of books written by friends and acquaintances keen to obtain my opinion, even when they know that effusiveness is not my style. This year my reviews have greatly pleased some of my writing friends:

• I have just seen your lovely review. Thank you so much for taking the trouble. It means a great deal to me as I sense that you are not a person to write glowing reviews you don’t mean.
• A quick note to say how much I enjoy your Goodreads reviews, which are very honest and insightful.
• Just wanted to drop a line to thank you for the lovely review. I really appreciate people taking the time to write thoughtful, well-constructed reviews. 
• THANK YOU thank you thank you!!! Very constructive feedback and criticism - so happy to hear more, especially if you had more things to say but may have been (understandably) hesitant. You have a great eye. 

Another took my comments very badly, despite my 4-star rating for her book. She sent several lengthy emails, criticising 'amateur reviewers/writers like yourself' as 'wannabes' adversely impacting on her ability to maximise sales from her book, as per the following small excerpt:

• Most professional writers [i.e. her] don’t read amateur reviews [i.e. mine] because they realise that many of the reviewers are amateur writers [i.e. me] who are desperate to have their voices heard in the mainstream arena and who seem to think that if they can criticise the author of a mainstream book [i.e. her book] it makes them equal if not superior to the author, thereby giving them a sense of power and authority – imaginary, of course.

In turn, I imagined her great sense of satisfaction as she furiously typed those last three words! I have to confess, it made me smile.

Her surprising reaction did serve a useful purpose - it jolted me into examining my approach to reviewing, which is as follows:

• I can't see the point in descriptive reviews which simply retell the story, so my reviews focus on my own intellectual and emotional response to the book. 
• I don't see myself as an advertising copywriter.
• I don't review books out of a desire to practise or showcase my own creative writing skills
• I try to make constructive remarks based on the 'sandwich' formula - the meat is surrounded by softer, sweeter wrappings.
• I don't read reviews by others until after I've read the book concerned, formed my own judgment and drafted my own comments.
• I don't review any book I've not read through to 'The End'. Ploughing on gives due justice to the author's efforts. 
• If I don't much like a book by someone I know, I don't comment on it publicly.

One issue still troubles me, though. As a reader across a wide spectrum of genres, my dilemma is ‘relativity’. Most books in every genre take a long time to write but how does a 5-star response to the effort and thinking behind a masterpiece, such as Tomasi’s ‘The Leopard’ or Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, compare with a 5-star evaluation for a popular romance? Both may contain high-quality writing making an impact, but of a very different kind. Are we expected to rate a romance much lower because it only took 4 weeks or 4 months to write, not 4 years or a lifetime?

Should writers review according to their own internal 'sliding scale' of quality writing based on relativity within the genre? I've done that a few times, by saying something like 'As a romance, this hits the spot' before continuing with the review, but is that a patronising approach? And I've given 1-star ratings to trashy ebooks and 2 & 3-star ratings to a couple of international best-sellers, due to boredom with the formulaic predictability or undue length of the book concerned.

The answer was given earlier - all successful books somehow need to engage the reader’s imagination. That is why well-written books in many different genres may deserve 5-star reviews.

However, the idea that writers should be wary of giving a less than fulsome review of the work of others has always bothered me. Carried to an extreme, only readers could thereby give 1, 2 and 3-star ratings for a book, and the perspective of other writers would be missing. And if writers are expected to issue a steady stream of top ratings for the books we read, do we thereby seem indiscriminate in our judgment? I've always been acutely aware that my reviews of other books also say a lot about me, about my values. I try to be as kind and thoughtful as possible while maintaining personal integrity in my reviews which, in the end, help me to shape my own writing.

If you also love reading and reviewing books, why not join me on Goodreads? This is the site where all the voracious readers of the world congregate and share their views.

I'd love to see more readers add their comments about my books (all are non-fiction, so far, and are available online through BookPOD). Apart from a couple of my readers who've joined Goodreads, all the feedback about my books is found only on my webpages, for example, the reaction to Robert Forrester, First Fleeter, which is about to be reprinted for the second time. So far, my readers are pretty happy. May that long continue, but ideas for making the next book even better are always welcome.