#book review standards

[fictionadventurer]

The worst part about reading in a genre where you have low expectations (in this case, Christian historical fiction) is that when a book impresses you, you have no idea if it's actually good or if you're just overly impressed because it was a fraction of a degree better than the usual garbage.

#basically lately anytime i read a christian fiction book that isn't romance-based i find myself surprised by the quality #i do think that some christian publishers are getting better #and trying to tell stories that dig deeper into real faith and messy issues #instead of making only vapid squeaky clean prayer-filled tropefests #but i'm not sure *how much* better #because anything above the low bar feels like great literature #the most recent is 'in a far-off land' by stephanie landsem #and let me tell you setting the prodigal son in 1930s hollywood is a genius concept #i have some issues with the history and the mystery #but the characters! #it has been a long time since i cried this hard over a book #several chapters of solid waterworks #(and i also have the issue of figuring out if it's actually that moving or if i'm just hormonal/sleep-deprived) #i keep thinking about this book but also i worry about recommending because what if it's actually terrible by normal book standards? #(also the author DOES NOT understand the seal of confession and i was SHOCKED to find that she's actually catholic) #but also looking at the reviews makes it clear that if most of christian fiction is vapid garbage it's these reviewers' fault #here you have something that's digging into sin and darkness and justice and mercy and these people are just #'how can it call itself christian fiction if it only mentions god at the end?' #are we reading the same book this WHOLE THING is about god! and humanity and our fallen nature and how this breaks relationships! #your pearl-clutching anytime someone tries to get even a tiny bit realistic is destroying this genre #i'm gonna run out of tags so i'll stop now

[jayteacups]

Fanfic readers seem to forget that commenting unsolicited ‘advice’ or ‘con crit’ (which quite often isn’t even constructive it’s usually just a nasty hate comment) or backhanded compliments or ranking fics etc etc is not the same as commenting those things about a published book. And I’m tired of people thinking that it’s the same thing.

Fanfic writers don’t make money off of their fics, so they don’t owe readers anything. It’s purely a passion project, and leaving a hate comment is pointless and wasteful because it cost you nothing to read it in the first place. Fanfiction is free, and it costs you nothing to click the ‘back’ button if you don’t like what you’re reading.

Published authors do make a living off of their writing, so they have to write something that will sell. This is why tradpub has a rigorous editing process, this is why beta and sensitivity readers are absolutely essential. Constructive advice and criticism whilst the book is being worked on is absolutely needed to make the book worth a reader’s time and money. And after the book is published, it will be reviewed. It will get good reviews and it will get bad reviews, because reviews are by readers for readers, to let potential readers figure out whether or not that book is something they’d enjoy, and therefore they can make an informed decision whether it is worth their time and money. Published authors do owe their readers quality work because they’re profiting off of their reader’s interest and enjoyment in their work.

Leaving a hate comment on a fanfic is not the same. People don’t pay to read fics, because it’s not an industry. It costs you nothing to click on an AO3 link, so the writer doesn’t owe you shit. Fics are tagged (or at least they should be), so you should be able to tell whether or not it’s worth giving it a read. And if it’s not, simply click out, and block if you need to. Write your own damn fic if none of the existing ones satisfy you. Leaving a hate comment won’t help you, and unnecessarily hurts the author’s feelings when fanfic is about fun and enjoyment and self indulgence. It costs you nothing to not be a dickhead.

#i’m so tired of seeing this surge of hate comments and unsolicited criticism #people seem to think it’s the same as leaving a bad review about a published book. no it’s not #published books are at the end of the day PRODUCTS so that’s why reviews and bad comments are quite standard #fanfic is not a product nobody is profiting #fanfiction #tw discourse

[menderash]

that metamorphosis goodreads review pains me so deeply and makes me so furious. like i wouldn't care if it was just some rando, but it was a person who has a whole youtube channel dedicated to talking about and reviewing books. this is someone who views themself as at least a small authority of what makes a book good. but their reading comprehension is so surface level that the idea that the book is a metaphor DIDNT EVEN OCCUR TO THEM UNTIL OTHER PEOPLE POINTED IT OUT. DID NOT EVEN CROSS THEIR MIND. they took is completely at face value and got mad when it didnt immediately explain how the bugification happened. this is what harry potter and the same mass produced booktok books about a white girl falling in love with the same abusive goth faerie over and over again does to your brain.

#listen a normie not getting kafka is fine #but if you make books and reviewing books your whole personality my standards for your level of critical thinking abour what youre consumin #is a smidge higher #embarrassing #imagine being a booktoker and not know how metaphor works #or like researching the time and place an 1800s or early 1900s book was written for context. thats like. a basic thing to do. #'ugh its like this book was written in germany a hundred years ago or something'

[blueteller]

TBOAH Headcanon

#tcf #trash of the count's family #lcf #lout of the count’s family #tcf headcanon #humor #tcf humor #choi jung gun #krs has standards #cjs has no standards #inspired by that comment cale once made about lock's character being frustrating to the readers #and i was like: what readers??? #i just thought it would be hilarious if krs was extremely picky with books #and cjg had his book reviewed by a bunch of equally picky gods #i mean say what you will about tboah but cale at least never complained about the quality of the writing #i posted this on discord #then i thought: why not on tumblr as well

[mermaidsirennikita]

The dichotomy between what's popular according to booktok (from what I've see) from the most blandest books imaginable to the most taboo erotica you can think of is kinda wild.

I think that what gets me with taboo books recommended by BookTok is that they're usually very poorly written. And if the writing is poor, you're not really getting the full "shock" value.

Like, when you read Sierra Simone's Thornchapel series, the scenes read as really intense because Sierra is an excellent writer. In contrast, a book like Hooked (that one dark romance~ modern Captain Hook book, a concept I was very open to and wanted to like, for the record) is very badly written. There's taboo content and a horrible hero, but like... It just reads juvenile.

I'm about 65% through A Kiss at Midnight by Anne Stuart, a historical romance that is QUITE dark, but the writing is frankly fabulous. Because Stuart can write, the darkness (which is not like, the corny "oh he's so bad he's in a motorcycle gang" torture sequence stuff--it's TRULY intense and pretty accurate for the era) is balanced out by emotional progression and honestly? A very dry, at times dark humor. If a lesser writer handled this plotline, it would just seem like shock factor after shock factor layered on just to get people talking. Very 2edgy4me.

And I'm gonna be really real here. Some fanfic authors are made to transition to actual published books. I think Ali Hazelwood writes a really solid contemporary romance. I really enjoyed You, Again by Kate Goldbeck, and that's based on a fic I actually read. The Hurricane Wars works as a book. (And mind you, let's not take away from the work the editors and authors did to rework fics into actual books here.)

Some fic authors are meant to stay fic authors and to excel at that. I personally think that one of the reasons why we have so many blaaand romance novels right now is that a) some of them are written by less-equipped fic authors trying to write real books and b) some of the authors have read less actual books than they have fics.

There are some tensely plotted, exciting fics out there. But personally? I think the standout nature of those fics--fics like Manacled, which... I think.... is not.... for me. However, bland it is not lol--makes people think that is the NORM for fic, when it's not. The norm for fic, and what I think a lot of more casual fic consumers and people who read more fic than they do books (compared to a lot of romance readers who turn to fic to supplement their reading habits) is very plotless slice of life stuff.

And that's not meant to be derogatory. It works, especially when you're writing about characters a lot of people know and love and are PROGRAMMED to know and love. Even if it's AU and they're basically other people, if you're writing a modern, sedate romcom about Katniss and Peeta and she mentions going to archery classes and Peeta being a baker, people are like aawwwww and they enjoy the nicely written scenes that are just people being people.

That.... ultimately creates a bland story when you're writing a book about original characters nobody has a preexisting investment in.

#romance novel blogging #lol idk sometimes i feel like fic gets this sweeping pass bc we're not supposed to critique the work #and not critiquing the work is fine i'm not here to tell y'all a thing someone is doing for free is bad when they don't want feedback #BUT... i think it's fair to critique the way fic has been uplifted and held on this pedestal compared to books #and EQUATED to books #which is my biggest complaint always #it's not better or worse it's different and if you think you can transition from fics to books #without reworking your products and your style #and frankly often putting a lot more work in #... idk man that's just so low effort and i personally think that's one reason why we see subpar books where nothing happens #they've always existed some people just do that lol but some of it i read and i'm like #this is like someone wrote a review 200k word fic about absolutely nothing changed the names and bit publish #(and another thing--one way you CAN tell there is a different type of work being done with fic is the wordcount dif #the standard for say a historical romance #which is often given more room traditionally in terms of word count than a contemporary romance #is 100k words #contemporaries often have landed between 80k-100k #then you have these 150k contemporaries and they're bloated as hell #but that wordcount is not unusual for fics #and fics are nORMALLY if edited at all being edited by amateur beta readers who do not professionally edit work #and often only look for typos or scene/character issues versus things like overarching plot and structural weakness #ADDITIONALLY! when you read a fic you're usually reading someone writing in real time #whereas if you are reading a well-done actual book you're reading someone's like... billionth draft that's been worked over by #multiple eyes. and i include indie in this bc the really good indie books have usually been professionally edited #on top of critique partners proofers etc) #ANYWAY. MY RANT.

[tbookblurbs]

The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings #1)

4.5/5 - Delightful, light entrance into the trilogy, plot gets lost sometimes

I have read the entire LotR trilogy so many times that it could be considered embarrassing. I've also taken a course dedicated to Tolkien's works so when I say I could write essays on a topic, trust that I have already.

I really enjoy a number of aspects in this book, with the first among them being the introduction to hobbits. I've never encountered another fantasy author that's introduced the species/race of their main character in such a way and I find it so charming. Classic favorites of this installation of the trilogy include Moria and the Balrog, Galadriel in the woods of Lothlorien, and, of course, the breaking of the Fellowship.

One of the things that always strikes me about this book is the way that Frodo embodies such simple heroism. He's doing this because it happened upon him, but he's willing to put his life in danger for others. It's something that is so small and seen in almost every hero of an adventure, but knowing Frodo's fate just makes it feel so much larger.

Tom Bombadil still confuses me as a character, but taking random things in stride is essential to Tolkien. A long novel, but one well worth taking the time to read even once, if only because knowing the depth in the books makes watching the films that much more enjoyable.

My one con, as always, with Tolkien is that there are hardly any women, but the ones that are present are interesting conceptually. They don't get a lot of screentime though.

#I've also seen these movies so many times that I can quote them line by line #only the extended editions though #the standard edition doesn't have the extra oomph you know #also if you read any fantasy and internally you're going “wow this sounds a lot like tolkien” it's probably inspired by him #he was one of the predominant voices when high fantasy was surging to public awareness and consumption and so his “voice” in writing really #helped shape the genre #also x2 chronologically I sat down to read fellowship because the green bone saga had really taken it out of me emotionally and I wanted #something familiar #tom bombadil #the fellowship of the ring #jrr tolkien #the lord of the rings #lotr #frodo baggins #book review #high fantasy

[bougainvilea]

last night i went to see ralph fiennes and indira varma's macbeth and let me tell you indira varma did SUCH a good job as lady macbeth i was hooked

#fiennes was ok. like he was fine #he did a standard macbeth. a lot of the reviews i read were like 'ok what dod this play have to say' and i must say i agree #aya talks #to be clear: i love macbeth. this version didnt do much response to the text it was kinda by the book imo

[900revolvingwheels]

giovanni's room, james baldwin

9/10

about some guy's room and definitely nothing else. definitely not about the violence and pain and suffering that often accompanies love. not about the guilt of queer love. not about desire and the morality of lust. not about self-identity and the difficulties of understanding yourself. not about losing yourself because you've lost the one you love. not about people who yearn for each other despite how much hurt their relationship causes. not about the guilt and pain of sex. definitely just about some guy's room

insane that this came out in the 50's and is like a really famous classic and not just some gay little book people didn't like. completely deserves it too, it's a short but incredibly insightful story and has some of the most beautiful writing about identity and love that i've ever read. i especially loved the dialogue in between the narrator, david, and his lover, giovanni. almost every page had something that i just wanted to highlight or draw a really dark circle around but it's a library book so i couldn't. it was so good i might buy a copy for myself, i'll definitely reread it one day.

it's paced in a very interesting way, it's definitely more on the fast-paced side but the way it presents the plot and characters makes it feel like it should be slow paced. the characters aren't very likeable but they're intriguing and you definitely empathize with them. i also really can't tell if baldwin is really really bad at writing women or if the one woman in the book is just Like That On Purpose. need to read more of his work and then maybe i'll find out.

#books #book recommendations #book review #james baldwin #giovanni's room #have had so little time to read this month it's very upsetting #also am realizing that maybe i rate everything a little bit too high #i need to raise my standards #or maybe i dont maybe it doesnt matter

[cthulhubert]

Catching the Record of Lodoss War OVAs on some channel's "animidnight" block was a formative experience for young me, and its design choices were scarred into my mind as the fundamental fantasy aesthetic. Which, uh, didn't exactly make me an odd one out anywhere because it hews closely to the ISO fantasy mold (and indeed helped make the mold).

"Record of Lodoss War" (I'm using quotes to indicate the literal phrase) is one of those odd-ball translation choices that ended up being iconic, just ever so slightly nonsensical, it stuck in the minds of kids like me that watched it young. A transliteration of the Japanese is Lodoss-tou Senki. -tou just means island; "senki" could credibly be translated as (and this may shock you) 'war record'. It's a specific term in Japanese that refers to the record an officer or attached scribe kept of the battles a military force took part in ("battle chronicle" is also a good translationand by metonymy is used for "military history"). As you might imagine, it's still popular in manga and novel names.

It started out as, not quite a novel, but a "RePlay", a record of the events of a table top RPG campaign, published in a magazine (Comptiq focused on computer games, but apparently content was content, and Lodoss got hugely popular). The mid-eighties predecessor to Critical Role, basically. It did really well, which makes sense, given that the dungeon master and the players were all published writers (the DM would publish what's called the first domestic Japanese high fantasy novels, Rune Soldier, in the same setting). It started out in D&D, but would also be played in Tunnels and Trolls and RuneQuest. In 1989, they ended up publishing their own set of rules, called Record of Lodoss War Companion, and later, Swordworld RPG (2.5edition came out in 2018!).

A series that was inspired and distilled a lot of the concepts that were and would remain popular in high fantasy settings in both Japan and America and then probably inspired another generation of iterations when the anime came back to America.

Some day maybe I'll watch the anime again, it finally got an English Blu-Ray remaster in 2017. I've read the manga and some of the novelizations in the mean time and, to be honest, they were pretty middle of the road, nostalgia notwithstanding.

Thank you for reading my ramble that was intended to be a short introduction to a short video game review.

A 2D exploration platformer with RPG elements (levels, stats, different bows and weapons to equip).

Briefly: a beautiful game. No flaws, but nothing that stands out either.

This game is beautiful. If you like the pixel aesthetic at all, I think you'll also love it. Critical hit in my visual sensibilities. It looks like Symphony of the Night looks in my nostalgia painted memories. The only note: it doesn't exactly take any risks, design wise, but if it did, that wouldn't be very true to the source material would it?

The music works.

Combat is pretty fun, if a bit easy. There are seven elements, you get wind and fire options for your basic attacks, and spells and special bows for the rest. Swapping elements changes your resistances too. The different types of weapons (long sword, knife, two-handed, spear, and throwing) offer some variety, as do the attractive designs. That said, for a melee based game like this, I prefer slightly more technical and challenging combat. Hollow Knight's a good example of my sweet spot, and Blasphemous is also well in my strike zone.

Movement is basically okay. You have to feel like a badass when you leave an after image trailing behind you. The wind element comes with the ability to hover (move slowly in mid air at up to your maximum jump height above ground or water), and they do a couple fun things with that. Other than that, it's all pretty straight-forward, which is a little disappointing.

They do some fun occasional fun puzzles with the archery.

Individual room design was fun sometimes, but the overall map design was lackluster. Yet another victim of the trend where leadership says, "Adding metroidvania tag increases sales, so do it," and design can only respond, "If we take a linear game, fold the map up in a spiral, and occasionally make you back track, that makes a fun exploration experience right?" It's been done worse but it's still not great.

This sort of game tends not to have a lot of story, but what there was was pretty good. One of those cases where the writers have a "twist" in mind, but did not intend for the player to be confused about it at all, just the character. The dramatic irony still makes the pay off satisfying.

It took me about 12 hours to 100%. It's on PC for 20$, which might be worth it. The Switch and PS4 versions are full price games, which is faintly baffling for a game so short, no matter how pretty and nostalgic.

And that's why I've shared so many words with my dash over what's ultimately a decent game; because of the anchor its series dropped in my heart in childhood.

Thank you for reading.

#original #review #words #long post #record of lodoss war #steam says I've got 33 hours in it but that's because of a couple times I closed the game but steam didn't think I did #I replayed symphony of the night and super metroid recently (ugh... holy shit... a few years ago now) #to see if they held up as the gold standards of the nonlinear exploration platformers that they are in my mind #and they absolutely were; it's no wonder at all that they created a genre themselves #if only more movies and books from my childhood followed that trend #since I can't mention the 'metroidvania that shouldn't have been one' without thinking about the worst example of it: #dust an elysian tail would've been an okay beat 'em up game; adding the most lackluster 'metroidvania' elements possible just made it worse #everybody needs to take more inspiration from games like axiom verge and hollow knight #I hope tumblr's recent spurt of transmisogyny doesn't burn it down around us; where else will I be able to post this kind of nonsense? #and then ramble about it in the tags after? #after I posted this I clicked my record of lodoss war tag: it is 90% cute pictures of deedlit #and in every other one I also explain the translation of the title again 😂

[emgeneticist]

I got the fight club book ^⩊^ yay!!!

#txt #it's one of my fav movies #the book is surprisingly thin though. my sister says the text is small af #— a normal size by my bad eyesight standards — #so maybe it's just the density of the text #and ahhh the cover has a bret easton ellis review on it 😭😭 fav media crossover or what #sorry for the nerd autism #unfortunately waterstones didn't have any of the classics i was looking for (roman cringe geek literature) #actually i was looking for one of the books on judea #or HOPEfully some fucking poetry #but unfortunately. nada #what ever!

[unpretty]

i'm torn between hoping the adult book subscription from fairyloot is good (so i can have more cool books that aren't about childrens) and hoping it kind of sucks so i can save money

#original #i have seen some reviewers say the books don't match the quality of the standard YA fairyloot editions #i resisted starting this post with a clause connecting it to the prior post #but i am indeed thinking that i spend too much fucking money on books

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

The Tribes Renew the Covenant

1 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. 2 And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. 3 Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac, 4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. 5 Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in its midst, and afterward I brought you out. 6 When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your ancestors with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. 7 When they cried out to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea come upon them and cover them, and your eyes saw what I did to Egypt. Afterward you lived in the wilderness a long time. 8 Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan; they fought with you, and I handed them over to you, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you. 9 Then King Balak son of Zippor of Moab set out to fight against Israel. He sent and invited Balaam son of Beor to curse you, 10 but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you, so I rescued you out of his hand. 11 When you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, the citizens of Jericho fought against you, as well as the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I handed them over to you. 12 I sent swarms of hornets ahead of you that drove out before you the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow. 13 I gave you a land on which you had not labored and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant.

14 “Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. 15 Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, 17 for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went and among all the peoples through whom we passed, 18 and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

19 But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. 20 If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.” 21 And the people said to Joshua, “No, we will serve the Lord!” 22 Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” 23 He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” 24 The people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and him we will obey.” 25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem. 26 Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord. 27 Joshua said to all the people, “See, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us; therefore it shall be a witness against you if you deal falsely with your God.” 28 So Joshua sent the people away to their inheritances.

Death of Joshua and Eleazar

29 After these things Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being one hundred ten years old. 30 They buried him in his own inheritance at Timnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

31 Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel.

32 The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem, in the portion of ground that Jacob had bought from the children of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of money; it became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.

33 Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they buried him at Gibeah, the town of his son Phinehas, which had been given him in the hill country of Ephraim. — Joshua 24 | New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE) New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved worldwide. Cross References: Genesis 12:1; Genesis 14:10; Genesis 15:19; Genesis 25:25-26; Genesis 31:34-35; Genesis 33:18; Exodus 4:14; Exodus 14:2; Exodus 14:9-10; Exodus 23:23; Leviticus 19:2; Numbers 22:2; Deuteronomy 5:27; Deuteronomy 6:10-11; Deuteronomy 7:20; Deuteronomy 23:5; Joshua 19:50; Joshua 22:13; Judges 2:6; Judges 6:10; Judges 10:16; 1 Samuel 7:3; 1 Samuel 7:12; 2 Kings 11:17; Psalm 119:173 Luke 3:34; John 4:5; Acts 7:42; Acts 7:45

#Joshua #review #Israel's history #God's work on Israel's behalf #serve God only #Joshua 24 #Book of Joshua #Old Testament #NRSVUE #Holy Bible #New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition #od's great work on Israel's behalf

[allnewastromarta]

I'm either very stupid or very smart. After reading apocaliptic predictions about AI from people working on AI, I really want to see a computer turning evil without human input that made it evil.

#god dammit #you're working on ai and warn people about dangers of ai #the only threat in this situation is people wanting more power #or money #we measure everything by our standards #the software creating an image of the pope on a scateboard for you is neither good nor bad #and now for something completely different #ai #i read an article and it made me angry #sorry #london review of books

[merecot]

the goodreads struggle of finding an upcoming book with an interesting premise but labeled "LGBT" and "queer", forcing you to read through all the reviews to determine what the fuck they could possibly mean by this. does your book have lesbians or does it have gender-havers ? answer me !!!

#when it's labeled queer but not directly lesbian or gay it makes me immediately suspiscious #on one hand i think it's stupid to judge a book by all the “representation” you can cram in it #but on the other hand these reviews have saved me countless of time from reading about demiromantic-genderfluid-socially anxious characters #so thank you my brave sjws for these lists #also can i say how much i hate how queer is now considered the standard label for gay literature ?

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/penny-wise-and-pound-foolish/

Penny Wise, and Pound Foolish

Like the boy who cried wolf, U. S. Senator Bernie Sanders has long blamed oligarchs for weakening our democracy. Of late, his prognostications ring true.  Vast fortunes concentrated in the hands of large corporations and a few individuals have weakened the middle class, leading the country toward a two-tiered economic system of rich and poor. Accumulating money has become the focus of almost every institution, including religion. Greed has a similar stranglehold in the book publishing business, which is why I’ve decided to give up writing novels and will return to short stories.  I’m not alone in my disappointment with book publishing. In an interview on Just Read It, author Karl Marlantes also admits that art has merged with commerce.   We should have seen it coming.  Once publishing houses started gobbling up their weaker competitors, the behemoth companies that emerged stopped accepting book submissions over the transom.  They turned the talent search over to agents. Agents live on leaner profits than publishers, so to foster their solvency they prefer commercial work rather than art.  How else can one explain literary fodder like Fifty Shades Of Grey?  Making agents gatekeepers in the publishing world has also led to a demand for books with a continuing character.  Once a writer scores, headhunters prefe to stick with the formula. Neither publishers nor agents market books. That task they assign to authors. In the past, that wasn’t the case.  But today,  whether house-published or self-published,  authors find themselves obliged to trawl for customers. Amazon, which began as an internet bookseller, was quick to see a market niche. Expanding from sales, they pivoted to include distribution services for small presses and self-published authors. Their plan was a success. Amazon grew large enough to put fear into the hearts of big publishing houses. To compete, those houses added electronic sales to their distribution system. But by then, Amazon had nearly cornered the market.  Big publishing houses had to cut a deal.  Naturally, Amazon grew larger. Today, it controls more than 50 percent of the online and offline book sales, its earnings totaling $28 billion a year.    In the beginning, Amazon had an advantage over its competitors.  Being an internet company, it was exempt from state and local taxes. These savings, it passed on to their customers.  And who doesn’t like a bargain? Consumers flocked to Amazon like a baby to its Pablum. Neighborhood bookstores couldn’t compete and began to die off. Seeing its power, the company flexed its muscles and turned on the publishing houses, demanding deeper discounts.  The houses resisted, and for a time, lawyers on both sides of the debate profited mightily with suits and countersuits. Eventually, both sides agreed the legal solution was too expensive and sought common ground. The answer was to raise costs for the consumer.  As a result, these companies have been accused of price fixing. For readers and writers, the publishing terrain has grown arcane. Here’s another example. Recently,  I published a review on Amazon for Susan Stoner’s latest Sage Adair mystery series, Preservation, A few months later Amazon’s review policy changed.  A former South African student wrote me to complain that Amazon had rejected her review of my memoir,  Getting Lost to Find Home. She had violated “community standards,” they said. After reading what she’d written, I scratched my head. Reading this book brings back some of my fond memories of the time Ms Miller spent in Africa. As a scholar at the school where she taught in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) (sic), I remember her as a young energetic teacher full of fun. In her memoir Ms Miller realistically conveys her challenge of being out of her comfort zone, facing new and unforeseen adventures. The beautifully written travel log tells of the journey from initial excitement to trepidation and uncertainty, to facing the harsh reality of life in a foreign country.  A good read of a coming of age. As it turned out, the community standard was self-serving. Amazon told my former student she hadn’t purchased enough books the previous year to be eligible to submit a review.  I shrugged at the bald audacity. The policy might work for the company, but it does bupkus for the writer who could use a few kind words. As for the consumer, they get short shrift, too.  The pennies they once saved with the internet company have evaporated.  And while free speech exists in the Western world, on Amazon, it has a price.     ________________________________     Listen as William Kenower, host of the podcast “Author to Author” interviews Caroline Miller about her memoir “Getting Lost to Find Home” https://www.blogtalkradio.com/author-magazine/2024/01/23/author2author-with-caroline-miller

#Just Read It #Bernie Sanders #Big publishing houses struggle with Amazon #book reviews on Amazon #community standards on Amazon #death of small bookstores #Fifty Shades of Grey #Getting Lost to Find Home #Karl Marlantes #oligarchs of power in publishing #Sage Adair mystery series #Susan Stoner

[emeryleewho]

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got paid to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Update: This is literally just a thought exercise to help you be more intentional with how you critique media. I'm not enforcing this as some divine rule that must be followed any time you have an opinion on fiction, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to structure every single sentence in a review to contain zero negative phrases. I'm just saying that I repurposed a rule we had at that specific reviewer to be a helpful tool to check myself when writing critiques now. If you don't want to use the tool, literally no one (especially not me) can or wants to force you to use it. As with all advice, it is a totally reasonable and normal thing to not have use for every piece of it that exists from random strangers on the internet. Use it to whatever extent it helps you or not at all.

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #am writing #books #booklr #fiction #media analysis