Musings on reviews
After the short review on World’s End I’ve been thinking a lot about what sort of reviews I should write. I think there are two main considerations:
- spoilers
- depth of analysis
I’ve never been one to take notes while reading, even when I intend to write a review. That takes some of the depth out of my analysis, because I mostly write by memory, not by actual factual book. So mistakes and misunderstandings are quite possible. Add to this my fairly scanning style of reading, especially when reading something that hasn’t caught my interest in a major way. The combination makes my analysis fairly shallow. Trying to avoid spoilers makes critiquing pretty tough as pointing to facts is pretty iffy. So I would need to consider the audience, do I write for people who haven’t read the book or to who have? That is something I can’t decide.
Finding middle-ground in between writing to haves and havenots and trying to convey my opinions based on reasonable arguments is something I drive towards. I’ll be experimenting with the coming reviews with different styles. One thing I’d like to know is that is the infobox alongside a review useful? Or should I just put stars in the beginning of a review? The box looks a little silly and publishing year and page count aren’t that important to the review.
My ego and wish to be expert say that I should write serious critique. That, however, tends to suck the fun out of the writing process and considering my overall difficulty of writing reviews, I doubt I should aim that high. Not to mention the dreariness making notes and analysing brings to the reading process. After all my point is mostly to enjoy myself.
Next in line to be reviewed after Passion Play are David Anthony Durham’s Acacia and Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself. I’ve read all three and started all the reviews already, so it is just matter of deciding on style and finishing up.
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