It’s About Making Babies!

Today’s Booking Through Thursday topic is a question.

Suggested by JM:

I receive a lot of review books, but I have never once told lies about the book just because I got a free copy of it. However, some authors seem to feel that if they send you a copy of their book for free, you should give it a positive review.

Do you think reviewers are obligated to put up a good review of a book, even if they don’t like it? Have we come to a point where reviewers *need* to put up disclaimers to (hopefully) save themselves from being harassed by unhappy authors who get negative reviews?

A review should inform the review reader. Out of a group of book readers, one or more will enjoy or appreciate almost any book. Part of the purpose of the review might be to help potential readers identify whether they are among those that might enjoy the book being reviewed.

A review can be many different things.

• What was best about the book.
• The most significant, in some respects, features of the work.
• Feedback to the author – what are the strong points, where the author should try to improve.
• Engage the review reader – sell the book to the review reader – by showing how the book meets the review reader’s needs.
• Evaluate the book being reviewed in terms of the art of writing, in terms of literature and artistic expression, and in terms of enriching the human experience.

The offer to review the book should make clear what kind of review is expected. If you are expected to generate a marketing blurb, there are lots of examples of damning with faint praise and oblique “this is a book” side-steppings. There are also relatively meaningless glib examples of “couldn’t put it down” and “Great read” that don’t really say anything, either.

If you are doing a technical or artistic review, then honesty and integrity of the review demand that your response be as factual and objective as possible. Integrity demands it, the reviewer’s integrity and the integrity of the review process.

In the unfortunate case where the purpose and direction of the review are unclear, then the review should be consistent with the reviewer’s usual work.

The question about honesty shouldn’t be an issue. Yes, be honest. But the reviewer’s dislike for a particular book needn’t be the central issue of the review. An honest review would never confuse the reviewer’s emotional reaction with fact.

I dislike gossip. I consider gossip to be one of the true social evils. Yet I see reviews with gossip – talking about the author or publisher or other people involved with a writing project. “This book is another piece of crap from a pathetic writer that can’t write,” is not a review – it is demeaning and disrespectful. “I didn’t enjoy the story” is honest, and should be part of a review only for a compelling reason. “The writing was terrible” is disrespectfully arrogant, it confuses the reviewer’s opinion with fact. “I had trouble following the plot” and “There were a number of confusing situations where a new character was introduced but did not have an apparent place in the story,” attempt to reveal the weak spots that caught the reviewer’s attention without unduly discouraging someone interested in the book for other reasons.

And that is one responsibility for many reviews: To encourage those that would enjoy or benefit from the book, and to avoid discouraging those same potential readers.