There are some amazing book review blogs. This is not one of them. I read purely for pleasure, I pick the books I want to read, and I review them. Nobody solicits me for reviews of their books, and while this little fact doesn't make me a "true book critic", it does (generally) exempt me from reading books that I am not interested in. When I start reading a book, and, for some reason, can't get into it (Outlander, A Prayer for Owen Meany), I put it down. Sometimes I go back to it, sometimes I don't. But I don't have an author waiting on the other end of their computer for my review. There's a sense of loneliness, but also a sense of freedom to it. It's a double-edged sword.
A few months ago, I reviewed a book that I bought for my Kindle, The Silence of Trees by Valya Dudycz Lupescu. I liked the book, but because of technical difficulties in the Kindle formatting (there were no distinct transitions between past and present-day, making it difficult at first to grasp which tense the main character was talking in at the time. Was she having a flashback? What was happening? This is what a commented on in my review on my blog (see above) and on Goodreads (verbatim, with the exception of leaving out the synopsis that I put in every review -- I assume that people on GR don't want to read my pathetic summing-up of the book). Review in place, three stars given, etc. I all but forgot about it.
This past weekend, two months after I wrote the original review, I received the following comment:
Everyone is allowed their opinion, and everyone reads a book looking for that special thing. But unless this is a professional book review for an analytical course in college journalism, please leave the technicalities to your own incapability of following the storyline. Only history books are written in chronological order! I'm surprised you didn't expect her to include little pictures above each character and a family tree for reference in the back! Plus, the older one gets the more "jumping back" happens in generational stories. Without it, it wouldn't be typical Eastern European! The author stood us, with her, in that room, exactly how her story was told! You just never allowed yourself to cross the threshold!
Now.
I feel that the commenter has a right to tell me that his or her opinion of the book differed from mine. S/he even has the right to criticize my taste, and write anything that s/he wants to about my review. S/he has the right to tell me that I have no better sense than a pack of weasels.
BUT. While s/he has the right to free speech, s/he does NOT have the right to tell me that I DON'T. And that is where I chafed. Right where s/he says this:
But unless this is a professional book review for an analytical course in college journalism, please leave the technicalities to your own incapability of following the storyline.
GR is, in their own words, "the largest social network for readers in the world. We have more than 5,500,000 members who have added more than 170,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more...Most book recommendation websites work by listing random people’s reviews. On Goodreads, when a person adds a book to the site, all their friends can see what they thought of it. It’s common sense. People are more likely to get excited about a book their friend recommends than a suggestion from a stranger. Our members also create trivia about books, lists of the best books, post their own writing and form groups and book clubs."
The website was created for Joe Everyman (or woman) to review books that s/he felt were worth (or not worth) reading. That is the point. It is not a place for readers to stroke the egos of authors and give them nothing but stellar reviews if they don't think that the book is up to scratch. I'm not going to leave a five-star review if I don't think that the book was worth a five-star review. Disclaimer: I will admit that, in the past month or so, I have stopped writing reviews on books that I give less than four stars to. This was a decision on my part when I realized that the authors were, in fact, reading my reviews. And, as I've said before, not being a professional, I don't have to write something negative if I have nothing nice to say. So I abstain.
But there's another thing that really got to me about all this. I looked at the GR profile of the person who left me the comment. And there were things about it that made me suspicious.
1) The commenter joined the day that s/he left me the comment.
2) The commenter only had ONE book on his or her book list -- The Silence of Trees.
3) The commenter had "liked" all of the 5-star and positive reviews on the book's profile.
Now. I am not saying that any of this is proof that the commenter is the author of Silence, Valya Dudycz Lupescu. What I am saying is that it's an awful lot of coincidences that a person would get this up-in-arms for a book on GR with only 36 reviews, and not be either the author or related to the author.
On March 16th, the literary world of authors and critics blew apart when author Jacqueline Howett went ballistic after the critic BigAl (pseudonym) wrote a less-than-stellar review of her self-published book The Greek Seaman. Readers and critics alike went to town criticizing Howett's bad behavior, and many commented that they would never read her books, that she had completely trashed her own reputation, and that things posted on the internet last forever (sadly, true). In posting such vitriol, Howett hurt no one so much as herself. As BulletReviews posted, from The Greek Seaman Review and Fallout (2011):
"I would like to congratulate almost everybody else who replied in the comments section; their points were nearly all entirely polite and reasoned, and all had a genuine shock at Jacqueline’s ranting, calling it anything from an ‘attack’ to a ‘meltdown’. All showed shock at the sheer unprofessionalism of such a paddy, and some endeavoured to pick up the toys and put them back in her pram for her. I have no doubt that this will serve as a lesson to many: the eBook market is hard to break into with any great deal of success, and you need to have a great deal of tact to get there. I hope, without hate, that Jacqueline is now regretting every clumsily bashed out letter posted on that site, although I wouldn’t be surprised if she never tries to make amends; the damage has been done. Self publishing is a delicate industry, and destroying your reputation and fanbase isn’t a good plan. As one canny poster put it: “The good thing about self-publishing is that anyone can do it. The bad thing about self-publishing is that anyone can do it.”
Authors, on GR, Amazon.com, or any critic's blog, should steer clear of posting any response to reviews, whether positive or negative, beyond "Thank you", in their own self-interest. This is not a restriction on the author's rights to free speech. I am not saying that authors should never be able to loudly praise a critic for writing a good review, or lambaste a critic for writing a negative one. All I am saying is that it is in their own self-interest, as a professional, to not let their emotions seep into their public image.
It's the same way any professional should act. For example, a business professional doesn't haul off and scream all sorts of colorful things at her boss about his mother if he comes in and criticizes her output of work. She swallows her pride, and lets the work show her improvements. The quality of work will speak for itself.
And finally, one final word: who are we to criticize? We are just the readers. I may think that Twilight sucks, but there are millions, millions of fans who think that I have no taste whatsoever and that Twilight is the greatest thing since Dostoevsky. Stephanie Meyer doesn't let my poor opinion of Twilight keep her up at night. And you, authors, shouldn't either.
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