Panick Attacks for first reviews?

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rachel_bruhn
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Re: Official Review: Darker by Michael Stephenson

Post by rachel_bruhn »

moderntimes wrote:Your stating that characters and locales are well described is a positive move. This is just my own opinion here, but I think that you spent too much time summarizing the plot and not enough time discussing the book's style, dialogue, underlying themes (alienation perhaps, with the undertones of racism added?) and so on. Telling too much about the plot has sort of given us the spoiler, especially since you mention an "early" King novel -- not much guesswork needed after this. Maybe decrease the plot summary by 1/2 and then expand on how realistic and believable the dialogue was, or how authentically the author depicted the main characters, etc.
I agree with this argument. There is a key difference between a high school book review and a critical book review. It is not our job here to share so much about what happens in the story, but how the story was told. You are critiquing the book from a technical standpoint. Some people like to focus on the flow of the story, how realistic it was, how true to genre the story was, etc. Others point out flaws in grammar, mechanics, formatting, etc.

I also agree with everyone else that you did a great job presenting a neutral review that was pretty well written. I think if you added more detail on the writing style itself and included more information about the target audience, message to readers, etc., then you would have a very well written review on your next go round. :)
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moderntimes
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Post by moderntimes »

rachel brought out a point I sometimes make regarding newbie book reviews. They're "high school" -- now I don't mean to disparage sharp and excellent secondary school writing, but only to label such review with a tag, the term "high school" being reflective of perhaps too much enthusiasm, too many exclamation points, and not enough professional aspect.

In the fairly long and very productive thread here "what constitutes an unfair book review" you'll see what I term the high school style: The reviewer summarizes the plot and then says whether the reviewer liked or disliked the book. Period.

Read book reviews from the New York Times or the New Yorker for an idea of the type of book review we're pointing towards. In these, it's an "essay" about writing or human behavior or our modern society or whatever, with the book under review as the focal point of this essay.

As was said above by others, the reviewer does of course summarize the plot a bit, but then lays off. So long as you tell the readers a little about the story line, that's sufficient. Then you discuss the other tenets of the book -- is the dialogue well written such that it's realistic and depicts how real people speak? Are the novelist's themes shown clearly and do they support the story? (for example, in my novel in progress, the basic theme is "betrayal" and so the main plot is about this, but also, in the story, there are several small lessons in what happens when you betray a loved one or a close friend. If I present this central theme of "betrayal" well, then the reader will be enveloped in the concepts without feeling lectured to -- so a reviewer of my new book, when it's published next year -- will recognize this and comment on such).

Any novelist juggles many literary balls in the air -- plot, theme, dialogue, narrative, characterizations, etc. A good review should comment on most or all of them, and how they act together to create a fine novel. You can for instance have a terrific plot but describe and depict the main characters poorly so that they seem one-dimensional and lifeless.

And of course, as has been also mentioned, the book's typography -- this applies mostly to self-published books because professionally published book rarely have numerous mechanical errors such that they affect the book's readability. But if these exist in large enough numbers, yes, by all means speak of them and perhaps downgrade the book accordingly.

Now you did a very good job in your first review, let me emphasize this. You were coherent, fair, and told us about the novel in a very clear way. All you need to do is maybe lessen the plot summary and then add some of the other positive (or negative) elements of the novel.

You did fine!
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Post by bookowlie »

donaldzlotnik wrote:I have taught creative writing in three universities and the standard approved method for critiques, etc has always been to present the pros and cons for the argument/review/critique and reviewers seem to think they MUST say something bad about a novel to make the review balanced and fair. I've read thousands of reviews and some reviewers will absolutely trash a badly written book and then end with "something positive" or rave about how great a novel is and then end with a negative comment. I have had the pleasure of reading John Steinbeck's original manuscript for "Grapes of Wrath." It is amazing how many spelling and grammar errors are in the manuscript--yet--someone saw through all of that and we have ended up with an American classic--that by the way had some nasty reviews when it was first published. One of the reviewers commented on the horrible "sex scene" that is now a classic part of the novel. My Point: Be honest in your review and if it is good or bad, say so and leave it at that. If you trash a book and then make a small positive comment it will NOT make the author feel better and if you praise a novel and end with a negative--you've made an enemy for life! :D
Well said. Some reviews bring up petty things that are so minor in an otherwise great book that it makes me wonder if they were just trying to come up with something negative to say. The opposite is also true, but I don't see that as often. I have read negative reviews where someone will just trash a book from start to finish because their objectivity is clouded by one thing they hated about the book.
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Post by quadbrookie »

Thanks for all the information everyone. Now, that I have my first review over with I have a treasure of knowledge that I was struggling to find while writing the review. I hope that my next review improves and hopefully impresses some of you.
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Post by bookowlie »

I am already impressed. :)
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Post by j p gilbert »

I have just recently had my first review published. I did not think it would be. I found the editors views to be a great help and have been working steadily on their points. I think this site and its membership have a good sense of “wanting each other to improve”, which is reflected in the forums. I have already accepted my next review opportunity and welcome any comments if/when it gets published.
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Post by moderntimes »

We're all here to help. That's the key to it this forum.

I've yet to see any snarky or rude comments here -- a very few maybe -- but not at all the sort of jerkwad behavior seen in many forums. Criticism here is meant to help improve and help the author / reviewer excel.
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Post by towner630 »

Stay motivated! I am new and cannot wait to read everyone's reviews to find some good new books :)
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Post by bookowlie »

moderntimes wrote:We're all here to help. That's the key to it this forum.

I've yet to see any snarky or rude comments here -- a very few maybe -- but not at all the sort of jerkwad behavior seen in many forums. Criticism here is meant to help improve and help the author / reviewer excel.
Well said. I agree that we are here to be encouraging and the criticism is meant to be constructive, whether it's in a review to help the author and in an editor's comments to help a reviewer.

We should give OBC a subtitle, "No Jerkwads Here." ha ha ha :lol:
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Post by moderntimes »

Regarding first review blues (nice catchy line, eh?), as I said earlier I've written over 100 book reviews for this mystery website.

Just a couple days ago I finished reading this beautifully written thriller about a ghost haunting a German sub during WW2. This was one of a half dozen new mystery books sent to me by my editor for review.

I was really conflicted. The submarine story was thrilling. The depiction of the life aboard a sub during that era was meticulously and skillfully drawn, great characters, fine dialogue, exciting conflict with the British sub hunters, and so on. I read that book in 1 day even though it was long. But the ghost part was sadly lacking -- all sorts of loose ends to the story.

Thing was this, I suspect -- the author wrote a careful and brilliant story about "reality" in the WW2 German submarine life. But he must have thought. "Well, this other part of the book is about a ghost, so it doesn't matter if it makes sense. After all, it's about supernatural things." I can't think of any other reason, because the submarine part was top rate and the author therefore is smart and knows his biz.

But for the ghost part, I kept asking questions "Why does the ghost want this or that?" or "What made the guy originally kill himself?" (he shot himself and became a ghost) and so on. And all these open questions left the ghost part of the novel swinging in the breeze.

So--- I was really challenged when writing the review, and let this be a caution to anyone else writing reviews. It's often very difficult to write a fair review without spoilers. Because I couldn't really say WHY the ghost part of the book was bad without revealing the sad fact that nothing made sense (even in a supernatural world) without telling the readers the reasons specifically, or even hinting at them. Because if I said "nothing ever gets explained" then that in itself would be a spoiler, right?

So I had to back off and pull my punches and just hint at the problems with the ghost portion of the story, and I minimized that part of the review and spoke more about the brilliant depiction of sub life on a WW2 German submarine instead, giving the book a "modestly" enthusiastic review.

These nagging challenges await you! (ha ha) But seriously, this is how you'll really enjoy review writing, because there ARE challenges when you review mature and first rate novels. The better the novel, the more difficult the review, sometimes.

Review writing is a terrific "puzzle" to solve and I wish you good luck in future puzzles.
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Post by bookowlie »

You are absolutely correct about the challenges when writing reviews. In fact, sometimes it's easier to write a review of a book that is not good at all. The books that are very good are often the most challenging to write about. You gave a good example of the ghost part in the book you read. I have reviewed many books where there is one plot point or element that keeps the story from being top-notch. I don't want to give spoilers so I have to work around it and give a cryptic comment about one plot point being confusing or not fitting in well with the story. It's a juggling act.
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Post by moderntimes »

Precisely. I was very conflicted in this recent review. In fact, I wrote a more explanatory review, emailed it to my editor, and then the next morning emailed her a "Stop the Presses!" note. In the review I'd revealed too much of the plot and I'm very reluctant to divulge spoilers.

So I re-wrote the review and only talked about the ghost story problems in the abstract rather than the more specific description which I'd earlier sent her. Then I emailed the revised review.

Let me make another point for newbie reviewers... It's not necessary to always think you have to say something negative about a very good book, or conversely, bring out positive items about a totally bad book. Sometimes a book is either very good or very bad and no excuses will change that.

So if a book is superb, say so and don't feel obligated to find fault. And if a book is awful, maybe it really really is bad bad bad.

Let me also emphasize this --- don't just write a review by summarizing the plot. A novel has many elements. Plot, literary quality, clarity of style, character development, theme, rhythm, lessons taught, humor or darkness depending, believable events, pleasure of simply reading, and many other elements beside the story (plot).

So your review should mention whether the characters are believable, are the situations coherent, are the scenes described so that you can feel that you're there in that locale, is the dialogue realistic, do the characters have depth and aren't one-dimensional, do they behave as real people would, and so on. Plot is only one item which makes up a novel.
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Post by j p gilbert »

What advice do you have for reviewers of non fiction books.
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Post by moderntimes »

Nonfiction books are a different ball of wax, of course.

Let's say it's an historical account of Rome under Augustus. You should be familiar with that period of Imperial Rome and have read at least a couple books on this subject,so you can compare the book under review.

Same for any nonfiction book -- one aspect of the review will be the accuracy of the information in that book and how this compares with other known facts on that subject. Doesn't matter whether it's history, painting a home, gardening, collecting cheese graters, whatever. Since the term nonfiction implies the real world, that book must be accurate on the subject. This of course implies that anyone who's writing a review of a book about, say, French Impressionism, has to be reasonably familiar with the subject. Otherwise, how could you know whether the book's accurate about the artists it discusses?

I'd equate this with the "plot" of a fiction book. For nonfiction, the "plot" is actually whether the book is accurate on the subject matter.

But like reviewing a fiction book, plot is only one aspect of a review. The author could have all the right facts in how to plant a home garden, but the descriptions could be so poorly written that the facts in the book are hard to discern.

Therefore, on nonfiction, primary is whether the subject matter is accurately presented, and secondary is the way it's presented -- clearly or muddied up, easy to read and understand vs blocky sentences and poor writing overall.

A quick example. I'm a "student" of Imperial Rome. One amazing book is "Caesar: Life of a Colossus" by the Brit historian Adrian Goldsworthy. Now not only is this book packed with fascinating information about Julius Caesar, but it's superbly written. It's a huge, thick book but it reads like a novel. A pleasure to read.

So were I reviewing this book, I'd give it an A on content and an A on presentation. This is how I'd approach nonfiction reviews -- separate the facts in the book from the way it's presented, and discuss both.

Hope this helps.
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Post by j p gilbert »

That's what I thought. I'm on the right track.
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