{"id":4575,"date":"2015-07-07T06:55:14","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T10:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4575"},"modified":"2015-07-07T06:55:14","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T10:55:14","slug":"what-ive-learned-about-book-reviews-by-writing-them-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4575","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019ve Learned about Book Reviews (by writing them): Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"books,

5-star books of 2015 (photo: Vicki Weisfeld)<\/p><\/div>\n

You may have read some of the book reviews I\u2019ve written for vweisfeld.com and Crime Fiction Lover<\/a>. Perhaps you\u2019ve wondered what criteria I use in assessing a book and assigning the stars. For one, you may have noticed that most books reviewed cluster in the 3-4 star range (good to excellent). There\u2019s a reason for that. I really don\u2019t read books at random; unless they promise to be pretty good, they aren\u2019t on my reading pile. Another way to say this is, there\u2019s so much good stuff out there these days, why waste time on schlock?<\/p>\n

Offhand, I can think of only two one-star reviews I\u2019ve given, and those books were gifts, well-intended, of course. At the same time, a book has to be really a cut above\u2014usually by having strong literary qualities or a truly compelling story\u2014before I give five stars. Proof of this \u201chigh average\u201d is that I\u2019ve reviewed 36 fiction\/memoirs so far this year; of these, 18 were four-star, while five were five-star. In 2014, I read 56 books, and gave 22 of them four stars<\/a> and only half that many five stars<\/a>. The stars are explained on this website\u2019s \u201cReading . . .\u201d page, as follows:<\/p>\n

Book Review Rankings<\/h3>\n

***** Highly recommended<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>**** Excellent read<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>*** Some flaws, but good<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>** Take it or leave it<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>* Save your $<\/strong><\/p>\n

While good reviews are important to writers, book reviews are mainly for readers<\/em>, so I try to focus on the factors that make a book a good reading experience. And, because they\u2019re for readers, **no spoilers!** in my book (and movie) reviews. This probably doesn\u2019t please my friend who turns to the back of a new book and reads the last chapter first.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s generally helpful to signal the genre of the book (some people love sci fi and other hate it, for example) and provide a short synopsis of the book\u2019s set-up. This lets prospective readers know whether it\u2019s the kind of book they would like in general<\/em>, and whether the subject matter is likely to interest them.<\/p>\n

Summary Judgment<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, I think about the overall impression<\/em> a book makes. When I reach the last page and think, \u201cNow THAT was a good book,\u201d assigning the stars is easy. But it isn\u2019t enough to tell other readers \u201cit\u2019s awesome\u201d or \u201cmeh\u201d and be done with it. Writing these reviews has helped me figure out why<\/em> I have these overall impressions.<\/p>\n

An important component of this summary impression is the idea <\/em>or theme<\/em> a book explores, which is accomplished by bringing together all its elements (plot, character, etc.) in a coherent, if sometimes invisible, way. Invisible or barely visible, because no reader wants to be lectured at. Ideas and themes must be presented artfully, something numerous critics (not me) felt Barbara Kingsolver\u2019s Flight Behavior<\/em> did not achieve, and which Neal Stephenson\u2019s novels do so well. As the old Hollywood saying has it, \u201cIf you want to send a message, call Western Union.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ideas and themes are what a book is fundamentally about<\/em>, and what it is about is not the same as plot<\/em>. It took me a long time to learn that in my own writing. People would ask, \u201cSo, what\u2019s your book about?\u201d and I\u2019d say, \u201cIt\u2019s about a New York City architect who finds his mistress murdered and then what all happens as he tries to figure out why.\u201d Now I say some of that, but I add \u201cand what it\u2019s really<\/em> about is a man trying to regain his self-respect.\u201d The \u201cwhat a book is about,\u201d stripped of plot intricacies, is the universal that readers respond to.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow: Component Parts, Errors, & You<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have read some of the book reviews I\u2019ve written for vweisfeld.com and Crime Fiction Lover. Perhaps you\u2019ve wondered what criteria I use in assessing a book and assigning the stars. For one, you may have noticed that most … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"What I\u2019ve Learned about Book Reviews (by writing them): Part 1--Why so many stars?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[122,174,359],"tags":[413,98,414],"class_list":["post-4575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","category-first-draft-blog","category-review","tag-readers","tag-story","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1bN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4577,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions\/4577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}