-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
~~~
The Oft-Misunderstood Art
of Book Reviewing
By Barb Caffrey
Folks, Stephanie
Osborn has asked me to discuss with y'all the often-misunderstood art
of book reviewing. Because I have reviewed many books in my
lifetime, plan to review many more, and have a regular gig reviewing
books at Shiny Book Review (http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com),
SBR for short, she figured I'd be a good person to explain what goes
on in a book reviewer's head – or at least what goes on in mine
when I review a book.
Now, you might be
wondering, "Why talk about book reviewing at all? Surely it
can't be that difficult to review a book – can it?" Well,
that all depends on the book.
And the fact that
book reviewers are often just as misunderstood doesn't help. Some of
the popular misconceptions run the gamut from, "Those who can't
write, review," and, "What does she know about books,
anyway?" Yet writing a book review isn't that much different,
if you do it properly, than writing anything else – the trick is to
read whatever book you're planning to review thoroughly, then ask
yourself a number of questions.
These questions,
roughly stated, are:
- Did this story make sense?
- Did this story make me care about its characters?
- If it's a fantasy, did I believe in the underlying premise, or not? (If not, why not?)
- If it's science fiction, did I believe the math, physics, and/or other scientific concepts were plausible?
- If it's a romance, did I believe the two characters could actually be a couple in real life in whatever time period the book in question has set them?
- If it's a mystery, was the mystery compelling? Difficult? Understandable? Or just weird?
- If it's intended to be funny, did it make me laugh?
All of these
questions may seem incredibly obvious. Perhaps they are. But those
are the initial questions I ask as I read – and those are the
questions that must be answered in order to get a good or better
review.
To give one
example not exactly at random, Stephanie Osborn's three novels in her
Displaced Detective series answer the relevant questions in this way:
- Did the stories make sense? Absolutely.
- Did the stories make me care about their characters? Yes, yes, yes. (I loved modern-day physicist Skye Chadwick, and who doesn't love Sherlock Holmes?)
- As this is a science fiction/romance, did I believe in the romance? Yes, I did. (I said so, too, in my reviews.)
- And did I believe the scientific background was plausible? Again, yes – I definitely did.
All of these
questions were answered to my satisfaction, which led me only to one
conclusion – these are good books. I enjoyed them
immensely, found them internally consistent and highly satisfying,
and gave each book an A rating (or better).
In other words,
with any book that's fun to read and/or makes its points well, the
above-mentioned questions get answered satisfactorily or better –
which makes reviewing them much easier. Being able to process these
various things in question form helps me as a reviewer to sense the
overarching plot, which helps me assess a grade and get the review
done and out.
The problem with
reviewing a book comes in when the above-mentioned questions cannot
be answered satisfactorily. To use another example drawn from one of
my reviews at SBR, I had a difficult time reviewing Debbie Macomber's
"Hannah's List" (http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/debbie-macombers-hannahs-list-contrived-predictable-and-infuriating/) because of its various shortcomings.
Here's how my
initial list looked for this book:
- Did the story make sense? No way. The doctor character was supposed to be happy his late wife "suggested" three potential mates for him via a letter he received on the first anniversary of her death, which I found to be extremely unlikely.
- Did this story make me care about its characters? Well, while I cared about Dr. Michael (the main character), I was angry that he was letting his dead wife lead him around by the nose. I also wasn't thrilled with any of the three women his wife pointed him toward, as the two good women basically weren't available, while the one flighty, available woman was not worthy of his time.
- As this is a romance, the next question is whether I believed the two people who end up together could really be a couple if translated to "real life." My emphatic answer was "No." (I'd use stronger language, except this is a family blog.)
The upshot was, I
couldn't recommend Debbie Macomber's book because as a widow, I knew
that most of how the main (widower) character acted was, if not
wrong, highly unusual. And the idea that Hannah, the late
wife, was somehow being saintly in giving her husband her little
list, when at best Hannah was being meddlesome – and at worst, she
was being Machiavellian in the extreme – really bothered me.
Now, the main
reason I'm using Ms. Macomber as an example of a negative review is
this – she's a well-known romance novelist with over one hundred
books out, thus should be able to handle a negative review now and
again. Most of her books are good; some are outstanding. But this
one just didn't work because I had more than enough knowledge, as a
widow, to realize that what was going on with the main characters
just didn't make any sense.
So the next time
you read a book review, remember that the reviewer is doing her level
best to discuss and describe what she saw. Please remember that the
reviewer is not "out to get" the writer if she gives a
negative review of one of your favorites, because that just isn't the
case with 99.999999% of the reviewers out there. And if you want to
discuss this blog, or anything else regarding reviews, writing, or
life in general, please feel free to say something here, at my own
blog (http://elfyverse.wordpress.com),
or at SBR (http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com).
~~~
Thank you, Barb. I appreciate your experiences and your knowledge, and thank you for guest blogging for me!
-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
