When I do a review, I try to tell my readers exactly what I think without revealing too much information about a book. I want to give the blog-reader my impressions without spoiling it for them all together. I also respect, and try to mention (especially when I didn’t love or particularly like a book) that my opinions are just that. There are likely many who would love the book, it just wasn’t for me.
I do not review every book I read, however I review most (a good 96% I’d say) of what I read. There are four reasons, respectively, I will not review a book:
- Sometimes I read a book, and while I enjoyed it, I just can’t really think of anything to say about it.
- If I really, really just didn’t like it, and do not want to be unfair to the author, I will keep my opinion to myself. I can understand the time and effort it takes to write a book. Often times a book becomes an authors “baby,” they work it and revise it, and they love it (or at least I hope they do,) and I really don’t want to be the person who says – “IT SUCKS.” That’s just mean. I have made a few exceptions to this rule, but rarely do I review a book I don’t like at all.
- I do not review books that come from a long running series that is not part of a bigger story. Example: Nora Roberts In Death series. I LOVE these books, but when it comes down to it, every book has a mystery, Eve researches her brain out, hooks up with Roarke, and then at the last minute one or both of them save the day. There are varying things going on, side stories, etc., but the differences are not enough to review every single book. On the other hand, the J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series is different. Each book has its own story, even though they are a smaller part of a whole series, so I do tend to review those books.
- For some reason I ran out of time, and the book is no longer fresh in my head. This rarely happens, but I do have three children and I work full time. Every now and then one just falls through the cracks.
If you are a publisher or an author looking for a review, and I accept your request – I am going to do everything I can to review the book. Even if I end up not liking all that well, I will rate it (via the Goodreads star system) how I felt, but I will always pull out things I enjoyed about a book.
This brings me to my review format. I try to do all of the following that applies for a book:
- Title
- Author
- Rating – since I use Goodreads as well, I use their rating system, which is as follows:
- 5 Stars – I LOVED it!
- 4 Stars – I really liked it (a lot)
- 3 Stars – I liked it (So in my opinion this is NOT really a bad rating)
- 2 Stars – It was okay
- 1 Star – I really didn’t like this book
- Genre
- Series (if applicable)
- Form (book, ebook, audiobook)
- Narrator (if applicable)
- Synopsis - a brief explanation of the book.
- Review - how the book made me feel. Little details about the characters, story, etc
- “What I Loved” – I try and find something in every book that I really liked, or loved.
- “Not So Much” - is there because just like there’s always something good to say about a book, there’s almost always something that just gets to me, or something I did not like. It seems only fair to include it.
- “Song Dedication,” - (if applicable) if I happen upon a song that really just seems to remind me of a book. I don’t always include this.
- “In this Series” - (If applicable) Pictures of other books in the series (even if they are not yet released)
- “If You Liked These, Then You’ll Like This” – Pictures of books similar to the book that was reviewed (based on my opinion)
If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to e-mail them to me at anitaloves2read@att.net
