An Author Writing Reviews

I write books, and over the past few years, I’ve dropped a number of book reviews in Amazon and Goodreads. All of my reviews are either four or five stars. Here’s why.

I only review books I like

I only review books I like, which means that my “reviews” aren’t really reviews, they’re recommendations. I’m not a professional critic. I don’t have a book review website. And although I’m always happy to gush about books I enjoyed reading, I refuse to accept that it is my responsibility to warn readers away from books I didn’t care for.

I don’t start many books that I’m not going to like

Truth is, I haven’t read many bad books in the past several years. I tend to read books that have been recommended on social media by people I trust. I’ve got a long list of books written by some of my favorite authors that I haven’t had the time to get to (because I’m usually busy writing my own stuff), and I’m reasonably sure I’m going to enjoy all of these once I read them, because I enjoyed their earlier works. Also, I’m careful about what I start. I make it a point to click the “Read Sample” button on Amazon and read the first few pages of any book I’m thinking about purchasing. I can usually tell within the first couple of pages if the book has little chance of appealing to me.

I only finish books I’m enjoying

Sometimes, despite my best efforts, I find myself reading a book that I’m not enjoying. I seldom finish them. In fact, I seldom get very far into them. You won’t hear about those books from me. I’ve read posts from readers declaring that they feel obligated to finish every book they start, no matter how much they are hating it. They say that they owe it to the author to finish their story out of respect for the work the author put into writing it.

Let me say this as firmly as I can: I sincerely hope that no reader EVER reads one more page of any of my books if they aren’t enjoying it. Seriously, I didn’t write my books to punish you, and I don’t want to be the cause of one more second of your suffering.

Life is too short to persist in slogging through a book you’re simply not into. I won’t do it, and I can’t understand why anyone would.

So what I’m saying is that since I never review books I don’t finish, I rarely finish a book that I’m not going to give a good review.

[NOTE: Some people insist that a three-star review is a good review. Whatever. I consider a three-star review to be a lukewarm, mediocre review. When I say “good” review, I mean at least four stars.]

I don’t want to be that guy

As an author, I like to express pride in my own work, even to the point of coming across as arrogant. I wrote a blog about that just last month. But I’m not nearly as arrogant when it comes to another author’s work. I used to be a college professor, and I also taught at a private college-prep high school. As a teacher, I had no qualms about critiquing the works of my students, brutally if I thought it was necessary (it was always intended to be constructive). But as an author, I am loathe to publicly pan the works of my fellow authors. Privately, sure, just ask me and I’ll tell you what I think of it and what I think you could do to improve. But in front of the readers? Nah. Don’t wanna.

So, there you go. Call me a soft touch if you want, I don’t care. You can call me anything except late for dinner. I have no interest in being a “tough” reviewer. For that matter, I don’t really have any interest in being a reviewer at all. I simply like recommending books that I personally enjoyed in the hopes that other readers will enjoy them as much as I did.

Peace, baby, and happy reading! I’ve got some recommendations if you need them.