I have had a whinge on my Facebook about Snark/Nastiness in book reviewing. I am talking mainly here of Goodreads, those .gif laden pieces of performance art that seem to pass for critical response to books.
I am not a fan of snark unless it’s done well (obviously “done well” is subjective and probably in line with my biases, political opinions etc). I have come across discussion threads where piling on an author is carried out with maniacal glee and where until recently people could name their book shelves ‘this author should be shot”.
My complaint is that when I as a member of the public, reading a publically posted review seek to query, discuss, perhaps challenge people in the discussion, they aren’t prepared to participate in a discussion, I am policing their reviewing. In essence they are willing to lump truckloads of shit on to an author but are not prepared to defend that position or clarify a stance. They have an opinion and you dare not express one that is counter to it.
My position is of course that you are entitled to an opinion if you can argue it sufficiently (and civilly is my preference, an honest civility not civility masquerading as tone-policing).
My feeling is that if you hold an author to the standard “well if you put it out there, you take the good with the bad” then as an ”author of a review” you should hold yourself to the same standard.
Maybe I need to look for better reviews, seek out better reviewers. Maybe its a case of SOMETHING IS WRONG ON THE INTERNETS!
Maybe the hardest part about being an author is developing the ability to take it on the chin( with the same regularity as sports stars but without the money)- it’s not about you but more about the reviewer.
But even after 3 years of reviewing I am not sure what effect reviews have. Do they really influence sales? Is any publicity good? Does it all matter?
I also wonder in a hyper connected world where authors are expected to do more and more of the selling, to be online and active, if, while reviews may not matter, angst, hate and the magnifying effect of social media might very much matter to the writer. Gone are the days when you would wake up to a week of bad reviews in the papers (where bad might have been some intelligent snark) now you could wake up to perpetual poo flinging that can drag on for months, confront you every morning while you realise that you get paid less than an unskilled labourer.
Mind you the other side of that coin could be waking up to fan love each day. But I still think we tend to like complaining and criticising more than praising.
It’s not a phenomenon restricted to book reviewing mind you. A culture of nastiness, of flinging shit and not having to deal with any consequences will be familiar to anyone who has teens on Facebook or anyone who followed political discourse in Australia over the last 6 years. I think it cheapens and polarises the discussion, it’s cheap entertainment at the expense of good solid discussion.
Sure the other end of the spectrum can be as bad - if we pat authors on the back, fail to interrogate the work enough then we do risk becoming stagnant.
Which brings me to the title for this post.
Am I being critical enough in my own reviews? Am I every bit as to blame as the monkeys on Goodreads, because in the main I choose to talk about books that I enjoy, that I don’t find too much of an issue with. Am I not interrogating these works sufficiently. Am I too nice?
This is the question I am left with and the question I ask you, fellow book reviewers, are we critical enough, where being critical is interrogating the work and having honest opinions without playing it up for the reader?
Feel free to list reviewers/bloggers that you think do a good job of being critical. I have some in mind but I don’t want to skew your answers.
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pattyjansen 15p · 596 weeks ago
Or maybe they hope they'll get a rise out of the author and then kick up an internet stink about badly behaving authors.
As reviewer, I think your task is to give potential readers a feel for what sort of book they're going to get. There is no need for sarcasm. There is no need to find something bad to say even if you can't. I always argue that reviewers should use the full spectrum of available star ratings, but a good reviewer explains the opinion given in the review.
SB Wright 110p · 596 weeks ago
And yes they hope to get a rise out of the author in a lot of cases.
On your last paragraph - the people or reviewers who influence me do this well. I tend to not focus on star ratings so much (except where I have to use them) because they mean different things to different people, regardless of what the site might say they are ie 1 star means you hated it but can be taken to mean by authors and readers alike that it is a statement of quality.
Maree Kimberley · 596 weeks ago
SB Wright 110p · 596 weeks ago
I also realize I am not a trained literary critic nor do I have a depth of knowledge that people like Gary K Wolfe or Jonathan Strahan might have. Nor are we getting paid. I think I can only go so far and like Patty Said give people a impression of what the book is about.
I gather the book you ripped apart was done in an articulate fashion :)
raventracks 46p · 596 weeks ago
I haven't reviewed much on Goodreads recently, because it irritates the hell out of me these days and while I add books to my library, I only occasionally give them a star rating.
I keep my reviews polite. That doesn't mean I gush over every book, but courtesy doesn't cost anything. If I have a problem with it, I will say so, and why. But I don't do the cutesy and unprofessional thing these Goodreads reviewers do. In some ways, they remind me of fan writers. Only when I was first in fandom, they were limitedo a print publication of a couple of hundred readers.
My recent post Monster School. City of Monsters Book 1. By D.C. Green. Melbourne :Ford Street Publishng, 2013
SB Wright 110p · 596 weeks ago
When recently expressing MY desire for polite and civil discourse I was met with the claim that I was tone policing. The conversation was on twitter which is never the place to have any sort of critical discourse and I think I misread their aims and intent.
I think you can be polite direct and scathing without resorting to sarcasm. But again that's MY preference. I think that its also easier to use snark instead of really being explicit in what you are trying to say. Snark to me is playing it up for the crowd, an attempt to be entertaining to emotionally manipulate your reader. And as has been mentioned previously it becomes then about the reviewer and not so much about the book.
Tsana · 596 weeks ago
In my own reviewing, I try to be honest. I give more positive than negative reviews because I'm not terrible at choosing books I enjoy and try not to request ARCs I'm ambivalent about. But I kind of enjoy writing politely scathing reviews. And I'm more likely to be harsh if it's an author I'm not likely to run into (that is, not an Australian...). I usually find it easier to write negative reviews than gushing ones, since I find it much easier to pin point things that didn't work, whereas with excellent books it's usually the whole package.
My recent post Storm Over Warlock by Andre Norton
SB Wright 110p · 596 weeks ago
Am I concerned that I might offend people in the community. In truth yes, but I will try and be fair. I remember giving a pretty scathing review of Alan Baxter's 2nd book, Realmshift, but he's a professional took out the chin. We've met and he's gotten better as a writer, to the extent that I am really interested in what he's going to deliver with this new HarperVoyager trilogy.
And yes its much easier to pick the faults. I find it very hard to pick just how the author managed to do things well.
randomisalex 25p · 596 weeks ago
In terms of your own critique, I wouldn't have thought that you were pulling punches. There's a difference between a reserved review - that points out some issues but doesn't spend 1000 words explaining why it's eeeevil - and one that doesn't both to mention problems, or worse whitewashes them. Me, I'm with Maree - I don't tend to write reviews of unenjoyable books because I don't finish them (...or start them). Which I'm sure makes me sound like a gushing fangirl who is completely star-eyed, but that's the price I pay for enjoying my reading (ok, mostly).
My recent post Galactic Suburbia 89
SB Wright 110p · 596 weeks ago
And when someone does a snarky take down of Franzen I am more okay with it a) because its usually articulate and factual b) because as a white upper middle? class American author he is at the top of the pile financially and socially.
It's when its Miss Midlist author who probably makes less than a waiter is getting ragged on by college kids who somehow can't manage to articulate themselves and who have an over developed sense of entitlement to opinion without consequences that I get frustrated.
I am also not sure if snark is a good tool for convincing people of position, its more a preaching to the choir, an in group activity to bolster the troops.
So long answer yes, look to who the reviewer thinks their audience is and disregard accordingly :D
And perhaps I feel this more because in Australia, online reviewing is generally about it for Speculative fiction.
WHY CAN"T WE ALL GET ALONG
I recently discussed the reactions of a couple of lit authors to very tame and articulate online reviews. I hope for their own sanity they don't venture on to Goodreads.
In my own reviewing I do try and soften the blow, and point out the issue rather than hammer the point home. On the one hand I don't want to cause unnecessary pain, on the other I don't want someone to lay out 30 bucks for something that's below par. It's a struggle sometimes but I guess that's the job.
I think I am with you and Maree in that I don't have time for books that aren't up to par, indeed I don't have time for a lot that are. My thinking though is that I do choose and receive stuff that is safe, safe in the sense that its genre fiction and a lot of times I am not having the sort of reaction say that the Writer and Critic do to some of the books they read. Maybe I need more provocative books rather than just straight enjoyable narrative.
ashleycapes 23p · 595 weeks ago
I wonder what the social media imperative authors seem to face creates a space where reviews have both a viral currency and where authors end up (having to?) create many of those reviews?
I feel I'm on bit of a tangent, but the thought jumped into my head when I read the post.
Ashley
SB Wright 110p · 595 weeks ago
Tangent away
:D
ashleycapes 23p · 595 weeks ago
Absolutely, organic is a great word for it, and I think you're spot on re: stats.
And I've been thinking about that culture of nastiness, it's probably too obvious to say that the distance and relative anonymity of the internet helps, but is it also a sense of entitlement I wonder?
The reviewer I would have suggested is actually Tsana :D
SB Wright 110p · 595 weeks ago
zainsaeed · 192 weeks ago