There are serious book reviewers.  There are jerks who simply give a book a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, as if a book were something like a pair of boots from L. L. Bean.  There’s everything in between.  When I ask, who qualifies as a reviewer, I really mean, who qualifies as a serious reviewer?

I’m talking about reviewing fiction.  Memoirs (too often close to fiction?), history, biography, technical, scientific, etc. are less likely to be questionable as long as the author of the review is objective.  Recently, a history of Jefferson was questionable and reviewers said so—some of those reviews might have been a bit subjective.  On the other hand, it’s hard to see how a book on quantum mechanics can be controversial (surprise, surprise! it can be, due to the philosophical underpinnings).

The class of serious reviewers of fiction books is also wide spectrum.  In it, you will find reviewers who critique a book on technical merits only—plot, characterization, setting, dialogue, etc.  They often don’t give a rat’s ass about whether the author tells a good story.  They put the book on the dissecting table in the MFA lab and start cutting with their scalpels.  I only find such reviews useful in a technical sense for my writing, not as useful tools for buying a book.

In that class, you will also find reviewers like me who know very well that the reader’s first interest is whether to buy the book (or borrow it from a public library, an acceptable alternative).  A thumbs-up or down is not sufficient, though.  The reader needs information that supports the reviewer’s opinion.  One reviewer said of my book Full Medical that “Moore has a solid grasp of the science behind his future, and it makes the book all the more frightening and believable.”  That’s a positive comment for many trying to find an entertaining thriller to read.  It implies I knew what I was writing about (I didn’t when I started the book—even with my scientific background, I had to research cloning).  It also might turn someone off who doesn’t want to be frightened!  In other words, the reviewer is providing information to the prospective reader, beyond a general thumbs-up.

These are the kind of reviews I find useful.  I strive to write these kind of reviews.  A discriminating reader will develop a list of reviewers he trusts—this goes for music and movies as well.  He will know that one has to get beyond the accolades that often appear in a book blurb, the back cover of a CD, or a movie promo.  As an example of cross-over marketing between books and music, E. L. James of Fifty Shades fame has endorsed a CD containing excerpts from various classical pieces.  She says she listened to them while writing her trilogy.  You have to get beyond the “Eeeewwww!”  The CD isn’t half bad, if you’re into classical excerpts.  (I’d recommend the full pieces, though, and forget about the Fifty Shades trilogyn connection.)  It’s not that an average rating like Amazon gives is a bad idea—the bad idea is that Amazon forces their algorithm down the reader’s throat.  I opine every reader should develop his own technique for “averaging reviews”—Amazon has shown that theirs isn’t worth much.

But what at first glance determines a good reviewer?  I hate to say it, but if I see a review written by John Doe, author of X, and I happen to like his novel or non-fiction book X, I’ll pay a lot more attention to that review than one written by Joe Smith, author of zilch.  Is that elitist?  Apparently, Amazon thinks so!  But why is that any different than placing more importance to a motorbike endorsed by a famous stunt rider or motorcycle racer?  (Back in the day, I would have paid attention to a motorcycle endorsement by Steve McQueen just for that ride in The Great Escape alone.)  Or, a quantum physicist recommending a book on quantum information theory.  We should value expert endorsements.

Of course, other people besides authors can be good reviewers of fiction.  You don’t have to have an MFA to write a book review either (many would say that it’s preferable that you don’t).  As a reader, though, if your reviewer is not an author, you had better read the review.  If it sounds like the reviewer knows what he’s talking about, go with your gut feeling.  If he doesn’t, you should ignore the review.  (I don’t know what the percentage is, but I’d wager that more than half of the reviews on Amazon are absolutely worthless!)  But please, don’t just go with the sure bet!  NY Times best-selling authors can also write crap, and indie authors can write really good stuff.  Also, the trend nowadays is that you will discover very few new authors in the ranks of the traditionally published.  You have to be a discriminating consumer.

It’s quite a responsibility to be a reviewer of popular fiction, no matter what the genre.  Saying you enjoyed the book or not is only the beginning.  You have to say why.  You also have to imagine what other people might see in the book.  “Readers of… will like this book because…” is one of my favorite phrases because I’m stepping out of my head into the heads of a different class of readers, saying that they will also like the book.  Reading tastes are very subjective.  Just my sampling of agents proved that, and they, if anyone, should be discriminating readers (although I think too many of them can’t imagine readers liking a book they don’t like–not to worry, though, because their profession will soon disappear).

When you write a review, you sometimes need to get technical.  For example, I reviewed a book once where the author used no contractions in his dialogue.  Ugh!  “I do not see the need for that.”  Sounds stilted.  “I don’t see the need for that” is better because it’s closer to the way people speak.  “Don’t see the need” is even better, especially if the setting is a big city where everyone is in a hurry and speaks in clipped sentences.  This is a technical point, but a reader reading your review will appreciate the comment.  It’s information he can use.

A reviewer is first a reader.  If he’s uncomfortable with the way a book’s written, he should say so, especially if he can extrapolate and realize that many other readers will also be uncomfortable.  He doesn’t need to say, “In my opinion….”  The reader of the review knows it’s the reviewer’s opinion.  But the reviewer also shouldn’t bother saying it if he doesn’t think it will make any difference to readers.  A good reviewer is a very coarse filter.  It’s better to let some chaff get through than to lose precious grains of wheat.  (Would that agents have the same attitude!  You’d think they have learned their lessons from those books who have made it big in spite of their “expert opinions,” from Clancy to Rowling and yes, E. L. James.)

Of course, this all applies to indie books.  Reviewers often don’t give them a chance, but they must be careful with them.  In this digital age of publishing, where anyone can write a book, a lot of chaff is thrown in with the good wheat.  This is the reviewer’s other responsibility, quality control.  And don’t kid yourself: too much junk comes out of the big publishing houses as well.  A reviewer’s reputation depends on his ability to screen out the bad stuff, no matter its source, be the book from traditional publishing or indie publishing.  As I said, reviewing is a great responsibility.  Treat it with kid gloves.

[This is my last post on reviewing.  I hope you enjoyed the series.]

In libris libertas….

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2013 at 4:00 am and is filed under Book Reviews, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.