Tom Easton, Analog's long-time reviewer, knew that he had people who appreciated his reviews because they knew they would love any book he panned in a certain way.

Thanks for posting this! I'm actually starting on my review of The Stepsister Scheme as I finish reading it, and was kind of feeling the prewriting flail. Knowing what helps you as an author helps me as a beginning reviewer.

When looking at a review, I look for an IP or a physical address... so I can hunt down and murdelize those stinking rotten bastards who kicked my poor paranormal baby right in the face tentacles!

Wow - I guess I'd better never try to get a job as a reviewer. I usually know what I liked and what I didn't like when I read a book, but the why? I dunno (brain damage! and 2 points if you know where that comes from)

Quality of review -- if the writer can't form sentences or use words correctly, I'm not inclined to take their advice on what I'd enjoy. A similar phenomena, if they complain of being bored by all the big words or similar. So that's hostile.

Content of review -- at the same time I don't trust "This is the best book ever and there is nothing wrong with it!" reviews. That's impossible. A review that provides some flaws or reservations, but concentrates on the book's strengths outweighing them will catch my eye -- not because I'd even agree with what the reviewer considered drawbacks, but because it shows they gave some thought to the structure and artistry of the thing.

Paragraphs of plot summary with one line of "And I like it!" are usually not that helpful. They can be if the reviewer add analysis to the summary. Too easy to be spoiled, though.

It also helps to know something about the background of a reviewer. With film critics, for example -- some of them get to the point where they've been doing it far too long and are blatantly jaded, so that when they think something is old, tired, and played out, it doesn't necessarily follow that the same will be true for me. Or you have the reviewers who subconsciously want to write their own book, rather than trying to determine if the author accomplished what the AUTHOR set out to do. Not helpful. (That last bit is a huge pet peeve of mine.)

That's it off the top of my head?

I don't read reviews of fiction, for exactly that reason. Reviews are opinions, and I diverge widely from any random person on what I'm interested in reading. Even professional reviewers, other writers, etc., don't qualify as "better opinions" for me. One review is pretty much like any other, and when it comes down to it, it's an opinion. (to me.)

Most of the time I can't even take recommendations from friends on what to read/not read, even though I do find out about most new books from friends. We just don't read the same things in the same ways. Even when we all like a book, we often like it for very different reasons.

When I used to read reviews, what was most helpful for me was: "If you like [insert author's name here], then you will probably also enjoy [insert other author's name here]." This can be equally difficult, because again -- different people reading for different reasons. But at least there was often a similarity of style or subject matter between two authors, that gave me a sense that I might be interested in the other author. I found some excellent new authors working off of the "if you like" principle. For instance, I like humor, and if someone was saying "If you like Robert Aspirin you might like..." I'd be MUCH more apt to pick up the book than if they said "If you like Anne Rice, you might like..."

I do find comments on writing *style* helpful. I like a few different styles, and there are certain styles that will drive me right up the wall. It doesn't make them bad writing, it's just a style that I don't care to read. If I can find out in advance that a certain author falls into one of the styles I don't like, then I can avoid that person. But nowadays I pretty much steer clear of all reviews, so it's a moot point.

For nonfiction and history, I do read reviews, but that's a whole different ball of wax.




Edited at 2008-12-08 09:42 pm (UTC)

When I review something, I try to compare it to other, similar pieces of work to give context. For example, I try to give "If you liked X, you'll like Y" suggestions.

I think it depends very much on the venue. I mentally divide reviews into three categories:


1) Amazon-esque reviews. I make no assumptions about who writes these things or what the people who are reading them are looking for. To judge by the great variation in quality, obviously different people are using them for different things. When I write Amazon reviews, I either give it a 5-star and tell people to buy it (and why), or I don't.

Now that's speaking purely as a reader/customer. When I've reached Stephen King-like heights of authorial fame, and Amazon solicits multi-paragraph reviews from me, maybe I'll change.

As I was discussing with someone else recently, I'm often as interested in the *numbers* as I am in the reviews. I.E. I want to know how many people gave it 5 stars, 4, 3, or what.


2) Thoughtful, longer reviews evaluating the book in question, talking about why it succeeds or fails, and possibly compares it to other works in the author's bibliography. I expect more from these reviews, and if there's no explicit "why," there's a problem. The obvious exception being if the reviewer's biases are well known. In these reviews (at the big SF review sites, e.g.), I want a thoughtful explanation of why the book succeeds or fails.

I'd like to think that this is the category into which most newspaper or popular magazine reviews fall, but these days often those are no better than Cat 1 -- and often below that, actually, and the reviewer just synopsizes.


3) Scholarly/high level journalism reviews. These set the work in the context of the author's oeuvre and the genre, maybe comparing it vs. greats of the genre. These are almost equivalent to criticism, and often that's what they are, but just dressed up as reviews to be more palatable to people who don't care for "that academic stuff." With these reviews, I want to know not just if it's good, not just how it succeeds or fails, but how it stacks up against other books, and what the author is trying to do in context... For something like this, I guess I'd like the Goblin books compared with, say, Pratchett, Asprin, and Adams, discussion of what the humor is and why it works (or fails), etc.


Probably more than you wanted to know, but that's what I think. :)

Coming from academia, of course, I'm used to reviews that analyze themes, messages, comparison within and between genres and authors, and so forth, rather than depend on personal/emotional reactions to a work. So, when I write a formal review (e.g., for The Harrow or DruPagliassotti.Com), I usually try to make observations along these lines and then give a very brief indication of whether I think the book is worth picking up or not. I'm hesitant to describe my personal feelings/reactions, because, well, (cue sonorous professorial voiceover) that's just not reasonable grounds for making a book-purchasing decision! ;-)

Come to think of it, I very, very seldom buy novels based on published reviews. On the rare occasions I buy a novel instead of borrow it from the library, it's because I've read other works I've liked by the author or some combination of genre-cover art-cover blurb interests me. Sometimes I'll buy one if a friend I trust gives it a rave review, but even then I ask the person, "what other books is it like?"

They do exist. However, you have to wait until the person who self-published them passes away, and their mother. Until then, there is one, perhaps two people who could possibly enjoy the book.

After their unfortunate passing, their books are no longer loved by anyone, nor are they enjoyed by anyone.

As a reader, I look for something about the book first, and second some highlights--good and bad. I prefer to judge for myself whether *I* will like it or not. The problem is that everyone *does* have their own opinion, so you can't take individual opinions ("I hated this" or "this part shows the author can't write") into consideration. Now, when you start seeing a pattern, that reviewers are pointing out the same weaknesses or strengths, you know there's something important there.

Otherwise, until you have some mind-control power to make everyone like your work, it's a matter of not letting every little remark get to you. (It's tough, but you made it this far and beat out the rest of us by getting published with a good commercial publisher, so you can be confident that you've done a lot right ;)

I don't really pay attention to reviews when it comes to determining what I buy. That's mainly through browsing (how I originally found Goblin Quest, actually--bought it based on the summary and liking the first part of the first chapter) and sometimes recommendations from people whose tastes I'm really familiar with. But even then, I have people who I trust to rec urban fantasy to me, people who I trust to rec epic fantasy to me, etc. because I know in that area we have similar tastes. I do sometimes read reviews of books after I've finished them, though, just to see what other people say. But that's more for fun/curiosity than because it actually makes any difference.

And I'm sure you're right, that there is no book out there so horrendous out there that no one likes it. Those books had to get written somehow, so I'd bet that the authors still like their own work.

To be a true review, you must always compare it to "CATS!", as in:

"I loved it! It was better than CATS!"

But if it's fantasy literature, I guess you can make that Lord of the Rings:

"Tolkien fans take note! A book in the tradition of Lord of the Rings!"

Seriously, though, I've been reviewing books for online and print publications for the past decade, and your criteria are pretty much what I use and what I tell the reviewers I send material to, to do.

What I want in a (novel) review is to find out (1) am I the target audience for this book, and (2) for someone who is the target audience, is it enjoyable? And maybe (3) are there any caveats that might matter? Like ambiguous ending, explicit sex, high complexity, etc -- things that might ruin a book for one person, but another might love it.

I do reviews for Amazon as part of their Vine program. Unfortunately, none of the SF/F publishers participate, so I have to go with YA or borderline-mainstream for genre reads. Lately I've just been reviewing gadgets and non fiction.

It's hard for me to tell if my reviews are effective. People use those useful/not useful buttons for all kinds of weird reasons, which have little to do with the review itself.

Ah well, as long as they keep sending me free stuff... :)

On Amazon reviews I look for reviews with substance, something that was written by a person with a decent grasp of English and the understanding that everyone's opinions are different. They don't have to like the book, but they have to tell me WHY they don't like it.

Amazon reviewers can be ... interesting. Sometimes I go into reviews for a cookbook and discover tons of reviewers who have nothing to say but "don't buy this, this author is fat" or "don't buy this, the author is gay", and those reviews are immediately disregarded. So too are the hoards of fannish reviews where it's obvious someone with a blog told their readers to go counter a bad review for their favorite book/author.

because there was 1 critical review, and 38 4 and 5 star reviews?

personally, as a reader, I NEVER judge a book by a single review from other readers on Amazon when looking for a book to read.

I actually don't read reviews (of fiction) a lot, unless they're written by people on whose taste in books I have come to rely -- and in that case something as minimal as "You have to read this book! I loved it! It was a lot like [Title]..." is enough; these are people whose reading tastes have often enough coincided with mine (at least in specific genres) that if they liked it enough to recommend it, chances are very good that I'll like it too.

In a review by someone I don't know from a hole in the ground, I'm looking for specifics about why they did or didn't like the book (writing style? voice? chapter length? plot? characters? narrator(s)? humour? text design?), which will tell me something about why I might or might not like it; comparisons to other books or other writers that give me a more general idea what the book is like; and other clues about the reviewer and his/her prior reading help me deduce how much the reviewer's reading tastes have in common with my own (including the language and tone of the review itself) -- does s/he have a sense of humour? does s/he find the language of The English Patient lyrical and beautiful or long-winded and irritatingly vague? is s/he a plot person, a theme person, a character person?

And, of course, if the review is clearly just pushing an agenda (particularly if it's one I strongly disagree with), or if the reviewer manifestly does not know what s/he is talking about, I tend not to take it too seriously.

I have to develop an understanding of a reviewer in order for him to become more than randomly helpful. It takes time, but after enough comparisons between what we each think of a book, a good reviewer can be prove very helpful. What's important is not what he thinks of a book, but that I know after reading a review what I'm likely to think of the book.

Prior to reaching that understanding, I'm mostly just looking for something in a review that resonates with me. "Hey, that sounds cool. I'll give it a try."

--Jeff Stehman

What I like (and try to do) in a review is a mention of who might be the audience for this work.

What many people don't understand is that a review is an art form of its own. It is akin to an essay. If you can't write a good essay, don't bother writing a review. (Amazon "reviewers" take note: "I liked it, it was good" is not a review.)

I used to be a food critic, reviewing restaurants for a magazine. My friends used to say, "I wish I had your job." But did they, really? What they meant was, "I wish I could go out to dinner all the time and have someone else pay for it and have it count as work." What they didn't realize was that it WAS work, and not just when I was in front of the computer. I was working the moment I picked up my fork.

Ditto a book reviewer, who has to read the book differently. The good reviewer has mentally started her review the moment she reads the first sentence. Reading critically and reading for pleasure are two different things, just like eating critically and eating for pleasure are two different things.

I read a fair amount of reviews (mostly when browsing RottenTomatoes, because there are few things I enjoy more than a really good, righteous roasting, especially if something deserves it). I also have read a lot of Neil Postman, and I think the key to reviews (and one reason why Amazon-style anyone-can-post reviews are almost always unhelpful) is that the reviewer was originally intended as a sort of guardian or filter. That is, you would find a reviewer whose tastes matched yours and use them as a guide to what was worth your time and money and what wasn't. (As people have posted upthread, this also works if you find a reviewer whose tastes are completely opposite your own.)

The interesting thing comes when you apply this to cyberspace. Postman talks a lot about information overload and how many problems it can cause for an individual and for society. In that sense, reviewers (good reviewers) are more necessary than ever. There is a HUGE amount of information out there, such that the time and mental energy we spend on a book or a movie is becoming a more precious resource than the money it would cost. Without someone reliable to help guide you through the muddle, you could well end up not enjoying much reading at all.

What do I look for? I look for the summary on the back of the book. It is what I base my decisions to purchase off of. As for reviews, I will give some credence if a book has something positive and SPECIFIC from a writer I know and like. It isn't foolproof but I have more curiosity in what the people whose work I admire get inspired by than a review from the Coffee Tribune III or Jake Ya-Don't-Know-Me Critic.

Honestly, I believe my husband and I have discussed having fake reviews on the back of a comedic type book like "Worst thing since the Black Plague..." -Stranger On Side Of Road and "Why did you make me read this?" -Mom
I truly believe they would do more for such a book than stuff from people you don't know anyway. Best wishes!

Congratulations on your Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award nomination!

I think it is - unfortunately - impossible to please everyone. I am delighted when I get good reviews - mostly I do. But I have also been terribly frustrated about two bad reviews I got. I get more frustrated if I feel they are unfair like the one that had the reviewer complaining that he had read through 800plus pages of this work to realise that it was ---fantasy. And he hated that crappy fantasy junk (- he might have read the blurb...?) and I was as incompetent as expected.
Basically I do not expect a lot from a review. I found it more useful to be discussed in a reading forum where people discussed the book in stages, and their reactions - and misconceptions and/or taking up red herrings or not - betrayed very clearly which parts of the book were more exciting and which parts were less clear.
Generally, genre fiction does not get reviewed by standard media in Germany - unless the book is an international bestseller already and the publisher has the means to throw well-catered press parties. That leaves online reviews by all kinds of people, not ALL of them necessarily very insightful.
But then I am perfectly prepared to see the positive reviews as clever and insightful and the negative ones as clearly written by uncomprehending morons (*grin*).

I write reviews for the British SF Association magazine Vector and I've written the odd review for Interzone and a few other places online.

Your suggestions pretty much match what I try to do when I'm writing a review (although is it just me or is it far easier to analyse what you feel doesn't work than what does?). Once and only once have I talked about the ending of a book in a review - but that was a reprint of Theodore Sturgeon's More than Human so I think I got away with it!

I just try and write the sort of reviews I like to read: something that will tell me enough about the book to give me an idea whether I want to read it or not. Of course there are also particular reviewers who you read because you like the way they write even though you might violently disagree with what they say!