Alma T. C. Boykin
Back when I was still haunting the Ivory Tower, one of the duties incumbent upon all grad students and junior faculty (and some senior faculty) was writing book reviews for academic publications and web-sites. We grad students also did it for seminar classes, and passed around the results of our labor. It was a good way to learn about as much of the literature as we could in the years allotted to us. There is NO WAY you can read everything in even a specialty field like Environmental History, let alone military history or political history. So we’d read in-depth one or two books per class per week, and “gut” a few others, and then lean on our peers’ efforts.
Academic journals often have a set format and a hard word cap. They want the argument, where it fits in the literature, any major holes, what’s great about the book, where it could be used (if applicable), and a neat tidbit (if applicable). You have 250-300 words. Concise, clear, useful, those are the keys for that kind of review.
At the other end of the spectrum is the New York Times Review of Books, or some of the book essays in the Wall Street Journal‘s “Review” section on weekends. The NYT reviews are long, discursive, starting with the book or books in question and then becoming a commentary on the topic, on society, current events, the historiography of the field (nonfiction), the genre and its trends (fiction) and anything else that seems applicable. NYT-style reviews are as much literature as they are reviews, and have been collected in hard-back editions for those who want or need them. You won’t see that with academic reviews.
Amazon, Goodreads, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, those are different again. It is a reader saying “this I liked, this I didn’t it might be like this other thing, yes, I’ll read the next one.” Ideally, the reviewer is reviewing the book, not the author’s personality, not the current political situation, not “It’s not my book, and it didn’t need to be written because I wrote the book about this already, go get my book instead.” [Yes, actual review, just not that blunt because of Amazon’s ToS]. Some reviews are painful for the author but great for readers (“I wanted a fluffy escape, but this has a lot of complicated world building. It seems good, but not what I wanted.”) Others make the writer feel good but might not help readers (“A literary tour-de-force of complex stylistic wonder that breaks genre molds. Needs at least three reads to truly grasp the author’s nuances and skill with language.”) And we’ve all found the occasional, “It’s a book. I don’t like paranormal romance and I hate werewolves and even though it said werewolf on the cover the author didn’t warn me that it had werewolves and the cover art stinks.” Sort of like the reviews that complain that the book was a novel when the subtitle, sales copy, and categories all say “novel” and ‘Fiction,” or vice versa.
When I review books on my blog, I incline more toward the academic style, because most of those are non-fiction. For Amazon and other reviews, I try to focus on the positive, any glaring problems, and to be fair. I detest vehemently reviews that say, in essence “This book is bad because it’s not the book I would have written had I written this book.” Be clear, be brief, be positive if possible, try to be helpful.
What do you as readers look for in reviews? What are flaming red flags, aside from “I hate this person’s politics so I detest this book” or “The topic offends me so I hate the book already. I’m two pages into the introduction?” Authors, what do you find helpful?
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[I apologize if your comment languishes in moderation. I will not have computer access until late today.]
Mad Genius Club 
12 responses to “Reviewing Books: Academic vs. NYT vs. Amazon”
I discount most negative reviews (re: book-specific ones) because no two seem to have anything to do with eachother, or even necessarily with the book itself (otherwise I’d be very depressed). I think people reading reviews tend to ignore those, too (I know I do when I read reviews).
What I love are reviews that mention anything (however small) that worked well for the reader, even if the review as a whole is “meh”. Those specifics that they like guide a lot of my marketing/blurb/ad content, and make me think when I write (“this is what they like about me; maybe I can/should do more of that”).
I don’t really have enough reviews of my stuff to have strong opinions about what should and should not be in them. In terms of reviews I write, I try to make them subjective but honest. (“I liked this part, wasn’t that into this other thing, don’t think this element works that well with the overall tone of the book etc.”)
Sometimes, as a reader, I’m a snob. If I read a review and it is full of bad grammar (excepting commas which I can’t do myself), but gushes about a book, I get suspicious. Look Inside is my friend in that case. Otherwise I like reviews to share how a book fits expectations. Or Not. But honestly, I read new things based on specific comments from people, like the comments on here about Beware of Chicken or the Vixen War Bride series.
As an author… I have a stalker in my reviews so I avoid them.
Fair enough. Bad reviewer behavior is something I didn’t really feel I should address, since it tends to either be very personal (as your case shows) or closer to ToS violations.
So FWIW, here’s my result from exactly one published story.
I got one really funny (as in, I laughed out loud when I read it, not because it was funny) comment from someone who judged my novella without reading it all. He said he didn’t want to be pedantic, but I should know that a Roman soldier at that time and place couldn’t get married. When of course the whole story was predicated around that exact problem. But it was useful, because I went back and put “wife” in quotes in the blurb.
Got a couple of mean comments by people who didn’t read the book, too, and those hurt, of course, but not too much because they clearly weren’t based on having read the book.
Of the five people who read the book and left reviews, they all clearly knew what I was writing, which was nice. Two accepted it as a romance (which is how I marketed it) and one directly said it wasn’t really. Which was fine because that person went on to do a review that showed that he or she really did understand what the book was about. Which I can only think would help a reader trying to decide whether or not to read it. The other two reviews didn’t comment on the romance aspect, but also clearly got the book.
I didn’t have any negative reviews by people who did read my book. There are a lot of things to criticize in the story, which could have been useful to people in a review, but nobody has left that kind of review so far.
Romance readers are … picky and are probably some of the most “beat” aware of genre readers. I’m glad the general trend has been positive.
I didn’t have any problem with people not taking it as a romance. It appears to be in a weird category. Yes, the trend has been positive.
And I liked that book, too — just wished it were longer. I didn’t take it for Romance (with a capital R), but just a reasonable and interesting slice of life.
Yeah. It’s very much in my usual fanfic style of writing. I do tend to be terse. Glad you liked it.
Erm. Reviews.
Oh, you should have seen me in my prime!
From around 2015 until 2020 or 2021, reviews were how I thanked authors for the effort they put into keeping me involved. Then, a series of ‘Frapping Growth Experiences’ (FGE) provided me with with new perspectives on LTUE, and for it-seems-like-forever, I couldn’t read. Then, I could read, but only some of my old favorites. And then, I tried some new works by favorite authors, but each time I’d get some momentum going, here comes another FGE.
My gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, would say “what is God teaching us in this,” and I wondered that, too, until I realized this is NOT a learning experience; this is when we put into place all those things we’ve already learned.
I’m not so bold as to say I have a handle on whatever FGE comes my way, but I believe I AM more successful in fighting back. I am currently writing a review of ‘Herbs and Empires’ at habakkuk21.blogspot.com, and will submit same to Goodreads and Amazon.
Ummm…anyone have suggestions for what I should read next? email me!
A good book? *ducks and runs for cover, chased by elegant, foxy, praying grandmother wielding family-heirloom cast-iron pan*
I either talk about what worked for me, or what really didn’t. I’ve left a couple reviews along the lines of: where are the editors? Reign/rain/rein errors were among the causes of that one. And others of the sort where I noticed the author isn’t able to differentiate characters by any thing (other than the name tag) any more. That I’ll call out in reviews.