I’m in a similar boat as PixelFish, in that I’m a wannabe YA writer who’s got a YA book review blog right now. Realistically, I’m years off from having my writing out there in the world, so for now I’m reading and reviewing and learning from others.

I actually received an email from a YA author whose book I posted a not-glowing review of, and she suggested I might want to rethink posting negative reviews. That I might be sorry one day because the YA writer community is small.

It kind of destroyed my will to blog for a while. But then I realized I am first and foremost a reader and no matter what happens with my writing I will always be a reader.

The whole reason I started my blog is that articulating what I like and don’t like about what I read helps me figure out what I like as a reader and also what I need to work on as a writer. I thought that others like me out there would appreciate reviews written from a writer’s perspective, and that it might help them to see areas where they could improve as well. And the idea of not posting any constructive criticism about what I read (as this author suggested) made me want to abandon doing a blog at all. I don’t enjoy reading reviews that are always positive about everything, and I wouldn’t want to be disingenuous with the reviews I’m writing either.

But I eventually did come to terms with that person’s feedback and decided that the benefit to me of reading critically, articulating it, and publishing it for others to learn from as well was higher than the potential drawback of when I might maybe one day possibly be published, y’know?

Anyway, loving this discussion. Good to hear others’ thoughts on the topic!

And some of it is sympathy from trying to extrude my own book. Because while I think that a certain character is the Mary Sueiest Mary Sue evar (except for possibly Bella Swan, but I doubt it, as I think Bella just has more notoriety) I don’t think her creator was writing her intentionally that way.

I know this even more than I did before Liar ARCs were released into the wild. I have completely futile-y been urging people not to spoil it. It’s alreayd been spoiled in multiple places.

Not my book anymore . . .

And yet . . . PLEASE DON’T SPOIL IT!!!!

Though I do think my fave bad review was someone who said “I blame the author for making us have to think.” That’s a criticism I think I’m okay with!

All that being said, reviewing is tough and I tend to stay away from it. I can always see the good in a book and I often can see the bad too. For me, life’s too short to dwell on the bad. And also, life kicks people around enough without me going and looking for people to kick me more

anyways… I am rambling now…

Lots of people work really hard and have what they produce dismissed. I know few people who work harder than restauranters and chefs. They have their work dismissed all the time.

I don’t like the idea of reviewers thinking they owe writers or editors anything. They don’t. They owe the people who read their reviews well-written, honest reviews. They owe that to themselves. But us authors? Forget about us!

*cough*

Other than that what you said.

Except for the Mary Sues. On account of if a Mary Sue is a convincing character they tend to have stopped being a Mary Sue.

And sometimes, the things you see in a “bad” review will drive you to a book. “Mindless beach read?” I’m *so* there!

I’ve seen reviewers hate all over one of my books, but then have seen them hate all over a book I also hated, and nail each and every reason I found it pathetic and worthless and a travesty to the trees it killed to be printed and go, “yes, you’re exactly right, and oh, crap, does that mean you are also exactly right about MY book?” Noooooooooooo!

But hey, I passionately disagree with my closest friends whose opinions I *normally* trust in all things about certain books. Somehow, we manage to make the relationship work. For instance, I love MOBY DICK. Justine quite wrongly does not see its glories. I have yet to stab her in the eye with a shrimp fork.

Sometimes, people are going to love/hate a book for the exact same reason I do, and that’s awesome, to find that sympatico. Sometimes, they are going to love or hate it for a different reason, and I’m going to tear my hair out and go “wow, you SO didn’t get this!” Oddly enough, i find the reasoning to be so much more relevant than the overall “rating.” Is that weird of me?

And REVIEWERS DO NOT PULL YOUR PUNCHES! Speaking as a writer, I’ll take my lumps if as a reader (which I was long before I was a writer and will be til the day they send me out on the ice floe) I can trust your reviews to be honest!

But I’m disturbed that anything I said caused you to tone down your reviews. Sadness.

Also the WRONG review can lead to me having hilariously wrong ideas about a book. Recently a Washington Post reviewer compared David Anthony Durham’s Acacia to the Chronicles of Narnia. “But grimmer!” Now I quite enjoyed Acacia, but except for having four children and the oldest girl kicking butt with a bow, there was little to no resemblance to Narnia. When I finished Acacia, and recalled the review, I thought, “That was not the right comparison.” And while Acacia was a pretty good read, it was hard for me to get into the book because I had been handed a set of expectations with the Narnia-but-grimmer comparison.

Actually, due to Justine’s prior discussions of why she doesn’t out books she hated, I have been rethinking my more snarky reviews. (I stand by some of them, although hopefully I didn’t descend into implying things about the author.) I have yet to publish a book, but after trying to write and finish a novel, I have a much better idea of how hard it is to pull together characterisation, plot, setting, everything, and make it into a unique and memorable novel. So I’ve tried to lay off any suggestions that a writer is a hack or lazy. Because good lord, writing can be tough sometimes.

I still reserve the right to point out my favourite bits of stuff-I-thought-sucked. (Like over at Tor, there’s a discussion about Mary Sues, and I mention one of my “favourite” Mary Sues ever, because it’s apropos to the conversation.) The author has my seven dollars, and I have three hours less. It all works out. I think I can have an opinion.