Tag: book review

All’s Fair in Love and Book Reviews.

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I read an article by an author who said never – never – read reviews of your book online.

Okay, but did he mean like never ever? Or just kind of never? Because never seems sort of impossible, right? (For a slightly neurotic, first-time author like me it proved to be, anyway.)

And I looked. That’s right. I read them all.

Here’s the funny thing about reviews of your book – a good review makes you smile and puts a spring in your step. For about a day.

A bad review is like that popcorn kernel that gets stuck between your tooth and gum that you can’t seem to dislodge no matter how hard you try…because the popcorn kernel is in your soul. Giving you something to poke at late at night when you’re trying to sleep.

So even though there are substantially more good reviews out there, the few bad ones are the ones that got under my skin. Which is probably why that author said DO NOT READ THEM! A-ha. If only I had the ability to listen to sage advice when it is presented to me.

Oh well. Some of the good ones make it all worth while.

Lisa over at LostInLit called it “Hilarious, Witty and Quite Charming.” And Lisa (I know – I’m winning with ‘Lisas”!) over at LisaLovesLiterature gave it 5 stars! And Becky on Goodreads said I “hit it out of the park!” Megan over at ReadingBooksLikeaBoss added me to her “Book Recommendations” tab! And then I found this young woman who goes by The Lone Reader who did a very funny and enthusiastic video blog about it. If I can make anyone rattle on that fast about my book, I certainly should be able to overlook a few naysayers.

So if *you* have read my book – and liked it – please leave me a review 🙂  (And I’ll try to keep myself from reading it). If you read it and didn’t like it – my name is spelled N-i-c-h-o-l-a-s-S-p-a-r-k-s. Be sure to get that part right.

 

Killing Off Your Beloved Main Character and Other Ways to Piss Me Off.

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I have a bone to pick with you, Veronica Roth. I just finished reading the Divergent trilogy in about four days. Clearly, I was riveted. Couldn’t put it down. So after investing hours and hours and approximately 1,500 pages (**Spoiler Alert**) you killed the heroine!  Now, I don’t use exclamation points lightly, so clearly I was caught off guard by your betrayal.

Okay, okay.  Was it meaningful and poignant?  Yes. Was it profound? For sure. Was it moving, yet devoid of any Nicholas-Sparksian (remind me to add that term to Urban Dictionary later) saccharine contrivance? Sigh. Definitely. Was I a 41-year-old woman feeling relieved that her husband and teenage daughter were not home to see her crying through the last 30 minutes of the book? You betcha. Do I understand, deep down, why you felt like you needed to kill her? Not so much.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t only read happy, little novels with endings that could be played by Meg Ryan. A Tale of Two Cities is my very favorite novel, I didn’t curse Edith Wharton’s name after House of Mirth left me a sobbing mess for an hour, and don’t even get me started on my love for Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Maybe, in this case, I had lulled myself into a false sense of security because these novels are considered “young adult” fiction and so I expected a kinder, gentler ending for your characters (which, I’ll admit, was fairly naïve given the overall brutality of the story).

Bottom line? It was sort of the literary equivalent of someone fighting long and hard to battle cancer, overcoming it, and then getting killed in a car accident (if the car accident was representative of sacrificing your life to save those you love and thousands more…so I guess it isn’t the same thing at all). Admittedly, Veronica, I loved the books, but I’m pissed at you for depriving me of my well-earned happy ending. Now go take a time out and think about what you’ve done, Missy (killing Tris, I mean, not the whole becoming-an-incredibly-successful-bestselling-author thing…I’m guessing you’ve already given that sufficient thought).