Today as a part of the Zenn Scarlett Blog Tour we have Christian Schoon on the blog.
OK, it’s a cliché, but it’s true: most authors reading a review of their book want honesty. Anything less is really a waste of their time, and a dereliction of duty on the part of the reviewer. When does this not hold true? Maybe if the author is the reviewer’s son/daughter/spouse/BFF. But no author realistically expects a useful review from family and friends (unless said family/friend has an extraordinary capacity for telling hard truths to Authorial Ego).
Now, that being said, there’s honesty… and then there’s snark-running-at-your-tender-bits-with-a-flaming-pitchfork. This shouldn’t need saying, but I’ll say it anyway: reviewers, if they expect to be taken seriously, shouldn’t use their reviews as private rant-platforms about issues not directly related to the author’s text. Not if they’re calling their post “a review.” If they label their post an editorial piece about why they just don't like this author's beady eyes, of course, that’s different. Pitchforks aloft and charge away.So, we’ve established that professional objectivity and honesty are good things in reviews. Not especially shocking news, eh? Beyond these elements, I think it’s safe to say authors appreciate it when it’s apparent that the reviewer has taken the time to give some thought to the issues raised in the book and has then taken additional time to craft some illuminating responses to those issues. This seems elementary, I know. But I’ve read reviews that were so cursory and slight that they really offered no true opinion one way or the other about the perceived qualities of the story and the writing. Or else, they offered an opinion, but with nothing in the way of a supporting argument (ie, "I hate this book - it's NOT what I expected!") Again, even this might be useful for an author as far as awareness levels for the book in question, but it’s not a “real” review, in the generally accepted sense of the term.
So, I think reviewers in general, at least the experienced ones I’ve come across, feel a sense of obligation to their readers to provide some depth of analysis re: quality of the writing, character and story, etc. Of course, that’s dependent on the sort of blog, isn’t it? It’s not fair to expect profundities about the Freudian allusions lurking in The Vampiric Zombie-Pocalypse from a blog that clearly labels its interests as “unicorns bathing in rainbows.” But, ya never know, you’d probably learn something about your zombies that never occurred to you….
