The Question of Book Reviews

The ques­tion of book reviews is vex­ing for many writ­ers. Some writ­ers have told me they nev­er read reviews. Oth­ers have told me they read them all. Then there are the writ­ers who read selec­tive­ly, from only cer­tain sources. Over the years edi­tors have told me to ignore reviews, even as oth­ers have told me I need to study and learn from them.

Then there is this: Over my years of writ­ing the world of review­ing has changed rad­i­cal­ly. Where­as many news­pa­pers and jour­nals once reviewed books, these days far, far few­er do. Book sec­tions (and review­ing) in news­pa­pers were once ubiq­ui­tous. Many have now disappeared. 

Does your local news­pa­per — if you still have one — review books? Does it mat­ter to you?

Almost simul­ta­ne­ous­ly I heard the head of a publisher’s mar­ket­ing divi­sion say that unless a new book gets three starred reviews, that pub­lish­er was not like­ly to put much effort into pro­mot­ing it.

That said, a recent book of mine was reviewed by only two pro­fes­sion­al jour­nals, (both pos­i­tive) and my edi­tor said I was lucky to get that many.

So the num­ber of book reviews has dimin­ished. Who­ev­er writes these reviews has changed too. Pro­fes­sion­al review­ing has been reduced, while online reviews, in which reg­u­lar read­ers give their per­son­al opin­ions, have grown far greater in num­ber and have evolved as well.

I have not seen them but I gath­er book review­ing exists on such as TikTok.

It used to be that reviews tru­ly impact­ed read­er­ship and sales. It is no longer clear if this is so. One won­ders, who read reviews? Librar­i­ans I sup­pose. Book store buy­ers. Read­ers? Do you read reviews? 

Just as social media has changed the way we com­mu­ni­cate — not nec­es­sar­i­ly for the good — online review­ing (which is rel­a­tive­ly new) can be much more crit­i­cal, with anonymi­ty allow­ing for neg­a­tive per­son­al remarks. Peo­ple who write these online reviews are free to say any­thing, and they do.

Online reviews can also be much more effu­sive in a pos­i­tive way. I recent­ly spoke to a vora­cious read­er who said she only reads what’s rec­om­mend­ed in online reviews. She pays no mind what­so­ev­er to what any in-print review­er wrote.

I do read reviews of my books, hold­ing to the notion that I can learn from them. I am also grate­ful for pos­i­tive reviews, hop­ing that they will bring more read­ers to the book.

I try to men­tal­ly screen out per­son­al remarks or quirks and am grate­ful for the pos­i­tive reviews. I also try to learn from neg­a­tive com­ments. If there is repeat­ed crit­i­cism of one aspect of a par­tic­u­lar book, I’m will­ing to believe it’s prob­a­bly justified.

That said, not long ago a review­er picked up one of my books (City of Orphans) think­ing — because of the title — that it was a dystopi­an tale. When she dis­cov­ered that it was noth­ing of the kind, she wrote a neg­a­tive review and rat­ed it poorly.

Anoth­er recent review, while lik­ing my book (for ele­men­tary read­ers) crit­i­cized my fail­ure to give the soci­o­log­i­cal rea­sons for aspects of the book.

All this begs the ques­tion: what makes for a good book review? What is its pur­pose? Is it a review of the writer, the writ­ing, or the book? Or all three? Many book reviews are hard­ly more than a sum­ma­ry of the book. Oth­er reviews are exten­sive, almost aca­d­e­m­ic dis­cours­es on a giv­en book. 

Is a review a pure­ly per­son­al response, or should it be put in the con­text of oth­er sim­i­lar books? Should the review­er con­sid­er that the writer has spent a year or more labor­ing over the book? Or is the book, hav­ing been made pub­lic, fair game for any response? 

Should self-pub­lished books be reviewed exact­ly the same way as tra­di­tion­al­ly-pub­lished books? Should a review note that the book was self-pub­lished? Is that irrelevant?

Should writ­ers who receive neg­a­tive reviews be free to review the review­er? Should a writer ever respond to reviews?

Speak­ing for myself, I want (and need) to see read­er respons­es to my work. I would like to believe I am still an evolv­ing and viable writer with much to learn. 

So, feel free to take a look at what I have writ­ten here and — review it.