…and how I review it.

I’ve noticed over the past few months, there have been a number of threads on various loops asking, in different ways, how reviews work. Then Faith came along and asked the group what they defined good writing as, and I was led to think about exactly why I write the reviews, and rate them, the way I do? I must have a definition of what constitutes good writing, to me, in the back of my brain somewhere, and the following, long-winded rambling is a bit of what I came up with. So this is a bit about how reviews (mine, because I can only speak for myself) work, and what works for me as a reader.

Why is there so often a dichotomy between the review rating, and the reviewer’s words? A three star review might garner a long and enthusiastic review, while some 4.5 or 5 star reviews get lack-lustre endorsements.

Now, obviously, I can only speak for myself, and not any other reviewer, and I don’t even claim to speak on behalf of the sites where I review in this article, because I cannot know what’s going on in the individual reviewers’ heads as they decide what, about a book, they want to talk about. So these are just  my ideas on the subject. (and I’m only using stars as an easy way to explain. You can substitute cocktails, divas, cups of coffee, or any other rating system you like, if you please.)

The answer to the question is going to be as varied as the reviewers themselves, but I think I’ve hit on a part of the answer, at least for myself. Basically, I am two people when I’m reading a book. I’m a reader, and I’m a writer. Those two personas look at the book from very different points of view.

The reader in me wants to be entertained. She wants to let go of her surroundings, her stresses, and her worries and get lost in a book. I’ve been that way ever since I learned how to read. The imaginary world beyond the pages is very important to me, it’s where a lot of my problem solving and creative thinking goes on, but it’s also where I can let go of every little thing and just be myself for a little while. I can feel as much as I want to feel, get as caught up in strangers lives as I want to, and not have to worry about how it’s going to affect my actual life.

The writer in me looks for excellence. I can’t help it. I demand it of myself, and that inner editor, when faced with a page full of words, is going to turn on and try to find the best order to be made of all the little black squiggles. When an author doesn’t meet her exacting standards, she lets me know, in no uncertain terms. (As often as not, I’m the author in question!) This inner editor was built to police my own worlds, don’t forget. She sometimes gets carried away and tries to re-write, in my head, the work I’m reading as she thinks it should have been written. She doesn’t differentiate between what I wrote, and what someone else wrote. (She’s a bit of a bitch who thinks she knows everything, to tell you the truth… ) This is by no means to say that she’s right. I have editors who will attest to that fact! But she does know good sentence structure from bad, right words from wrong, and how to build a world and a character I can feel for. After all, if I don’t feel for my own characters, how can I write effectively about them, right?

So this is where the dichotomy comes in. I can love a book to absolute pieces, be very invested in the characters and the scenario, and hold my breath for the happy ending, and still know it is not as technically proficient as it could be. This is where I have to balance the writer’s point of view and the reader’s.  More often than not, when I sit down to write the review, the reader in me will gush up and speak over the writer, extolling all the wonders of the characters, the tense plot, the agony of waiting for the main characters to see how much they love and want one another, and the writer will be left spluttering in the dust saying “…but…but…the head hopping! All the ing’s! You didn’t even read the part where they used herd instead of heard!!! What is wrong with you!?!?!”

What’s wrong with me is that I want, in the end, to lose myself in someone else’s world. If an author can do that, even with technical flaws, they deserve to hear about it, because it’s damn hard to do. When it gets right down to brass tacks, craft, technique, can be taught, I think. It can be learned. Spinning a tale that draws readers into the world you’re writing about is something you have in your soul. A technically flawless book is a thing of beauty, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the tale I’m after. The oblivion of forgetting where I am and what I was supposed to be doing is what I look for.

So that’s why, sometimes, I might give a three star review to a book I gush about. I love the story, but I have to give the writer in me voice, too, and she gets to weigh the technique with the art, and decide the rating. If the technique surpasses the actual content of the story, I might give a higher rating and less enthusiastic review. I rarely find a book that marries art and skill to the extent that that inner editor in me is satisfied into silence, and the reader in me is happy, too. I can probably count them on one hand, in fact. Maybe two. But I could easily name them all.

And let’s be clear that my definition of what constitutes excellence in craft might not be the next person’s. It comes down, to some degree, to what I like as well as the proper use of the language, and not everyone even agrees on the rules, either. Language, and creating with it, is an entirely malleable and fluid process. I happen to notice, in the last few books that I read, that different writers reach me in different ways. Some appeal to my head, and my appreciation of the fine use of the language to create a lovely story where all the pieces fit. Some writers reach inside and grab me by the guts and don’t let go until I turn the final page, even when that pesky editor is griping about awkward phrasing and showing rather than telling. Both are good. Just different, and will get different kinds of reviews from me, that’s all.

I guess, in the end, the thing to remember, whether you’re the author reading a review of your work, or a reader looking for the next great masterpiece, is that every reviewer has their own set of rules as to what makes a good book. Those rules might not be the same ones you go by. Reviewing can be a highly personal thing, and should be taken with a healthy dose of salt.