Our hosts this month are C. Lee McKenzie, JQ Rose, Jennifer Lane, and Jacqui Murray.
Here's our question for December: Book reviews are for the readers. When you leave a book review, do you review for the Reader or the Author? Is it about what you liked and enjoyed about your reading experience, or do you critique the author?
As an author, it's hard for me to read as a pure reader, especially since I spent many years reviewing other people's work in an online writing workshop. This is part of the reason I seldom write reviews. I worry any comments might be perceived as critique and might invite retaliation by other authors. I mostly use Goodreads to track what books I read and occasionally to read other people's reviews.
I do make an exception for fan fiction. Fanfic writers write not for profit, but to share their passion with their community. Kudos and comments are a key motivator for fanfic authors, so I do feel obligated to leave them. Any comments I make are about the reading experience; comments aren't the place to critique the author.
Do you review other authors? If so, what's your reviewing approach? Feel free to share more in the comments.
If you're wired to be critical that would lead to potentially harsher reviews.
ReplyDeleteWith DLP, I'm always in edit mode and that's hard to turn off.
ReplyDeleteLike you, it's rare for me to read for pure enjoyment only. Typically, I analyze while reading. I love it, though, once a book has drawn me in so well that I'm no longer analyzing but reading, eager to turn the pages!
ReplyDelete