Reviewing Works

As I have grown in my love for reading and writing, I have found that while I have opinions on everything I have ever read, I don’t always have much to say.

When it comes to writing a review of a book, I find it is easiest when I have strong feelings towards a work whether those feelings may be positive or negative.

In general, finding what does work in a book is more difficult than finding what doesn’t work. In the same vein, it is easier to articulate why a book is bad than it is why a book is good.

I call it “hiding the strings”. A good book and a bad book will include many aspects of novel writing such as foreshadowing, plot twists, tropes, ect. When a novel is written well, the reader won’t be able to see the “strings” that connect different scenes and plot points. For example, good foreshadowing is written in a way that the reader doesn’t recognize the set up until after the foreshadowed event occurs. A scene that is clearly setting up something for later is bad foreshadowing.

This, in my opinion, is not only why bad reviews are typically longer but also why they are more detailed than positive reviews.

One also can’t ignore the emotional aspect as well. As it has been said time and time again, people love to hate. When expressing our negative opinions, we want to be well understood about the reasons why a particular work is an affront to the reader, the publishing industry, books in general, and God and country.

That being said, I like to write reviews of different works and I have found that my longest ones lend themselves to being negative rather than positive. As I am aware of this, I will work on putting just as much effort into the books I love desperately as I do those that I love to loathe.