After much consideration I’ve decided to split BookLove into two. All reviews of adult books will continue to appear at BookLove. My reviews of kid books, as well as kids’ reviews of kids books, will appear at the new site Kid Tails which remain PG rated so that if kids surf onto the review site they won’t find Coraline reviewed side by side with a paranormal erotica novel.
Kid Tails is also open to submissions (unpaid) of reviews from kids and grown ups alike (especially from teachers and librarian and classes who want to talk about their favorite books). Here’s the dish:
Kid Tails is a book journal site for kids and kid books! By focusing only on kids and kids books we can keep our site clean and kid friendly.
We are looking for YOUR opinion about books. We accept reviews from all ages (including grown ups), from students, parents, teachers, librarians and whole classes!
We will try to post a new review every Monday (and increase our rate as we get more reviews). You can email reviews to ZombieMichele@gmail.com Please include your name & age (for children’s reviews), name (for adult review), the site the review first appeared on (if the review is a reprint), or your teacher’s name and class (if it’s a class review).
All books reviewed should be for Young Adult audiences or younger. We would like at least two to three lines for a review telling us what the book is about, whether you liked it or not and what the best part was (also please tell us if this book has a theme, like Christmas, or spring, or vampires). Adults are welcome to add comments about the appropriateness of the book for young audiences and how well it could be integrated into teaching plans or parent-child reading sessions.
We will also post reviews of books we have already reviewed (because this will give different opinions or show grown ups which books kids like the best).
Questions and comments can be sent to ZombieMichele@gmail.com.
Sometimes both “hats” (I hate that term, but it common and easy to understand) are hard to wear. So from the mind of someone caught between in a rather public way, let me offer a few words.
Reviewers are #1 READERS. They are your audience, they are just vocal (and I hope) well-read members of your audience. Almost all the reasons I had for becoming a reviewer revolved around being a reader. I wanted to expand my horizons, record my thoughts of what I read, contribute to the reader-sphere and figure out why I liked the books I liked. Even my quest to build my own audience base comes down to me wanting to relate to readers.
In my opinion the best authors are widely read.
Whichever side of the author/reviewer divide you fall on you can (I hope) understand why we read. The love there of. The search for awesome, satisfying fiction wherever there’s a page and two covers. It’s a voracious desire, even if our reading habits don’t keep up. So if you understand that, you likely also understand the utter disappointment of a book that doesn’t deliver.
Readers ALWAYS bring something personal to a book they’re reading because they have chose that book for THEIR entertainment or THEIR information. If it doesn’t sound even the least bit interesting you cannot get a reader to pick up your book. Readers cannot forget who they are, especially since by the nature of reading it takes a period of time to complete the book and we do not live lives that allow for sitting down and reading the whole book at once. For example it takes me 6-20 hours of reading for me to finish a book and this is considered fast reading. I can finish a book in a day, if it is engaging and I do very little else. So by the nature of the activity there will be interrupting. The book will get put aside for minutes, hours or days. The reader will stop reading to live their lives and as such books simply do not sweep people out of their identities and into the book. Readers can suspend disbelief, but they cannot suspend their own opinion and personality in order to assume the one the author wishes. At best readers can eavesdrop and sympathize. We can connect, but not become.
While I believe that there are no taboos in fiction when you get into offensive and argue-triggering ideas, concepts and events an author must convince a reader that there is point, a purpose, to the story they are being told. I read and reviewed Pain Killers by Jerry Stahl, which was absolutely filled with racism, sexism, addict, hate speech and other highly offensive material. Like Natural Born Killers and most Tarantino films the story is out of control to begin with. It’s dangerous, almost a parody of human behavior at it’s worst. It’s Jerry Springer, with a point, completely over the top and almost a farce of real life. The point is that it’s sadly not an inaccurate reflection of humanity, but by making these things part of an overwhelming narrative the author makes the statement that such human behavior is a over the top farce in and of itself. Now suddenly this highly offensive narrative had a point–making fun of such extremes even as it uses them as tools in telling a greater story.
In short if you go this route, or that of high sex, high blood or gore, it should have a point vital to the storytelling itself. Even Lolita had a point. the best horror stories might be violent and gory, but the the gore isn’t the end all, it’s the dressing up of the point, and in the great novels the gore, like the language is used to manipulate the reader into believing certain things vital to pulling them into the story. The storytelling should not be effective without the use of racism, abuse, gore or sex (Think Palahniuk’s Choke, where the sex is absolutely vital to the telling of the story) if you are going to use it in your book.
As a reader I have a huge problem with romances wherein the hero rapes the heroine. Rape is not attractive. It is not romantic. I cannot stand romance books where the hero rapes the heroine (or vice versa).
However when I read horror the rules change completely, because horror is supposed to make you uncomfortable. A relationship between a heroine and hero that includes rape and beating and even drugging would be acceptable to me in a horror book because it could very easily be a tool to make me feel terribly uncomfortable.
That leads into my next point; Because readers always bring themselves into the story readers will always go into a story with expectations. Some come from the genre (I expect horror to make me feel uncomfortable, scared or creeped out, for example), or from a knowledge of the author’s previous books (you can see an example of my own expectations from an author’s previous books in my review of Prey by Rachel Vincent, where I had to confess that I expected the series to lose its bite as readers got more attached to the characters), or from recommendations they’ve received from friends or online. This will affect a reader’s experience as well–and worse you can’t control this.
On to disappointment. No matter what the reason–the story not being what they wanted, the storytelling not being good, technical writing problems, or even just a story being good, but no spectacular–readers hate to be disappointed. Very rarely does someone buy a book wanting to hate it. Even books that have bad reviews might have elements that some readers like. Some readers literally cannot get enough of certain things (vampires, zombies, love stories) and will read and probably enjoy almost every book with those elements that they can get their hands on. Which is something I keep in mind when reviewing a book I didn’t personally enjoy. Rare is the book that no one can enjoy.
But readers are not against you. We want to enjoy your book. We want it so much we try to push aside ourselves aside to enjoy your tale. (This is suspension of disbelief. We know CSI is NOT accurate, but we pretend it is so we can enjoy the story they are telling, not the sheer heavy details of accuracy. No one wants pure accuracy in speculative fiction, because then fact checking becomes more important than storytelling.) It’s upsetting for us when we don’t enjoy your work, and yes, we do wonder if it’s just us. It’s a reviewer’s job to analyse:
1. Do I like it–Yes or no.
2.Why or why not?
3. Where are the bits that cause me to like/not like it?
4. Are they because I couldn’t connect with this story/these characters or are they do to poor writing? Or both?
5. Would other people like it? Why or why not? And, what kind of people would like it?
6. (Not all reviewers consider this one, but critics do) What value does this book has in the greater context the genre, the author’s career, the current state of the world and literature?
Most books I read are good, but not spectacular. My top complaint is not being able to connect with a lead character. This is completely typical of reviewers, readers, agents and editors. We all do this because we love it. We read because we love it. (For the most part) We are not your enemies, or your opposites. There should be no professional divides. We ARE your audience. We are your street team. Every single reader is not just a sale, they are a potential word of mouth recommender.
If the reviewer liked or disliked the book, if it horrified or amused them, caused them to stay up late or throw the book at the wall, that is down to their personal experience of the book. They have made the effort to place themselves in an open state of mind that was receptive to the authors imaginings.
…but then the author did it for me. This is exactly why you should NOT EVER snap back at a reviewer. There just is no way to do it without looking like you’re throwing a fit.
My review (which I absolutely stand behind):
“…She needed a man. Hell, maybe if she bothered to drop down below 220 lbs she might find one. That, and she’d have to not talk. Basically she’d have to become an anorexic mute and then she could possibly attract the attention of a blind man with no sense of smell.”
Want another excerpt?
“Oh, and this book is self published, so there will be typos. Oh yes, there will be typos. Think of them as easter eggs. Happy hunting!”
Under is the tale of two bad tempered middle aged office workers who are one small town’s only defense against cannibal creatures who are getting ready for a feast. Quinn tells the truth, there are plenty of typos to “hunt” for, mixed in with formatting errors, like words printed on top of each other. (Note: This refers to the original edition. In the revised edition these are supposedly fixed.) There’s plenty of violence and profanity, along with sexist and racist comments and female characters who are lined up like pigs for a slaughter.
Jacob, the lead character, is very hard to relate to, and framing him not with some kind of amateur knowledge that saves the day, but instead with a load of cops and state troopers who are bumbling idiots and jerks leads to this book feeling like a poorly spun Rambo fantasy. The lack of editing, the -ist jokes and complete stereotyping of every character who isn’t the hero leads to Under reading like a first draft, or first novel attempt that’s not quite there.
Horror is no longer and excuse for sexism, racism and homophobia and self publishing isn’t an excuse for typos and a complete lack of consideration for the money readers might spend on a book. Take your chances on this one, if you wish, but be forewarned it doesn’t have much to offer.
And the public response from the author from GoodReads, available here (behind the cut):
It is NEVER a good idea to snap back at a reviewer for a review of your book that you didn’t like. Hmm, perhaps I’m not getting my point across.
It is NEVER a good idea to snap back at a reviewer for a review of your book that you didn’t like.
Never.
If they are wrong, let it go. If they insulted you, let it go. If you think they had an agenda, or didn’t even read the book, or missed the point–Let. It. Go.
Rant in private, to friends. But for gods’ sakes do not email them an insulting letter, and do not start a public thread insulting and ridiculing them.
Because, are you listening? A review is an opinion. It may have weight, it may not. And it’s not because you might piss off the reviewer, it’s because you will expose your inner fucktard and like racist slurs and private porn tapes that inner fucktard is what people what people will recognize you for.
You will reveal that you have no ability to deal with opinions about the work you put up for public sale, and therefore public discourse, that aren’t positive. You will reveal that you have no real respect for the opinion of the reader and no drive to write and publish your best work. Instead it ALWAYS comes off as if the author is a spoiled brat throwing a fit because they didn’t get the praise they deserve, and it looks this way even if the reviewer is wrong. (Except, I refer you back to the above paragraph: A review is an opinion. “Wrong” is not an easy thing to assign to an opinion.)
P.S. Also, many many reviewers and review sites already have a no self published books policy. You’re giving more people a reason add one.
P.P.S. Oh yeah, and emailing me nasty emails means instead of reviewing your book and moving on, I’ll start warning people about you, your work and your nasty email.
I’ve taken the People of Color Reading Challenge. I commit to read and review at least 15 books this year by or featuring minority characters. Furthermore I’m committing to reading and reviewing at least 10 books by GLBT writers or featuring GLBT characters.
You can take this challenge too by clicking on the picture above.
So far in the history of BookLove I’ve already chalked up quite a few.
Here’s my top books of 2009, in no real order. (This is of the books I read in 2009, not those published then.)
Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher
We love the Dresden books here at Case de Lee and graphic novels so we were extremely excited when we found this. The art was clean and vivid, the story line was fun, and Harry was as sarcastic as ever. So bonus points go to Welcome to the Jungle for being one of the handful of fiction books to capture my husband’s attention as well as my own, an impressive feat.
Skin Tight by Ava Gray
I got to read this as a first reader (so you won’t see a review here) and I just couldn’t get enough of Mia and Foster. I love the really smart heroine and the tortured, reluctant hero and with this book Ava (aka Ann Aguirre) expands her concept to a whole world mythos while leaving so much more to explore that readers will want to keep sticking with these loose series to find out more. (Skin Tight comes out June 2010)
Magic Strikes & On the Edge by Ilona Andrews
Perhaps it’s unfair of me to both list these together and to take up two slots with Ms. Andrews’ (actually a husband-wife writing team) work. But to hell with it this is my list and I just cannot express my absolute adoration for Andrews’ writing style. She pushes all my buttons in the right way and to top it off On the Edge has the feel of my mother-in-laws’ rural town that’s my hiding place from the world, AND it has a character that everyone say looks like Sesshomaru from the Inyuasha series. You can’t get yummier. Yet Andrews also packs a wallop of dark, sinister fun into her books making them absolutely irresistible to me. Bully Ms. Andrews and keep giving me more!
Convent of the Pure by Sara M. Harvey
Billed as a steampunk adventure it’s actually a lesbian love story urban fantasy with steampunk overtones. It features a Nephilim and her dead lover who stumble upon a secret facility where other Nephilim are being experimented upon for foul reasons, and best of all it’s the first of three novellas. The only problem I have is that I didn’t think to write it first!
Bestial by William Carl
This one shows my roots, my absolute love for horror, despite it’s boxed in, trope heavy current state. Not the most original of tales, it’s the zombie apocalypse novel, but done tongue-in-cheek with a myriad of small additions that make all the difference. Instead of a virus spreading a mind numbing hunger for brains this disease turns people into werewolves at night, only to leave them back to human during the day to deal with the extent of their bestial actions. This book manages to mock the zombie apocalypse–and many other horror tropes as well–while adding unexpected sinister twists and one of the best horror werewolves I’ve read in a long time. I didn’t expect to like Bestial, but I haven’t been able to stop recommending it which makes it a clear winner in my book.
An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris
You hear a lot about the Sookie Stackhouse series, with True Blood being such a massive force in TV this year. But this is my favorite Harris series. It’s dark, real dark, with the characters barely holding on to their sanity as they risk their lives trying to help the bereaved families of the missing or the dead to find peace and closure. The paranormal thread is also real delicate. Rather than living in a world of vampires and werecritters, Harper and Tolliver live in our world where her powers are somewhere between believable and crackpot. In this books they face their first serial killer, which isn’t a plot taken as lightly as some horror authors deal with this this way. Powerful and disturbing I cannot get enough of this series.
Prey by Rachel Vincent
Another series I love, I thought for sure that Vincent was going to jump the shark with this one. I mean, she writes this dark world where females are, in a way, prisoners due to their value to the werecat species. Protected and indulged they’re free, but still raised to someday marry and continue the species. It’s easy for their identities as people to get lost. From that comes Faythe, who is determined to be her own person and to marry on her own terms, if at all. This is the fourth book in the series, which is dark but has strong romantic ties too. It’s tighter and more adventure driven than the previous books and I thought for sure this is the point where Vincent caved and the series stopped being hard to handle, emotional urban fantasy and softened to a more romance state of being. And I was so wrong. Vincent still tortures her characters and her readers and clearly keeps the spirit of the series together, managing to make Faythe take a full role in her pride and family, without declawing her to do so. An excellent author, who can keep the conflict and theme going for multiple books, and one I look forward to reading more from.
Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
Another one I expected to be too romance for my tastes. (For the record I like romance, just not as a stand alone story. I have to have something else to the story to keep my interest.) I picked up these books because 1.) they were urban fantasy and 2.) we needed werewolf titles for Monster Librarian’s Werewolf Month and I was glad I did. After finishing the first, Moon Called, I went out to the stores and grabbed the next two in paperback, but Iron Kissed ended up being my favorite. The third book in I loved this one in part because this is where skinwalker (sort of like a werecoyote) Mercy Thompson admits her love for werewolf alpha Adam, but the real darkness and emotion pain that it takes to get there makes this story a monumental read in this year’s collection. It’s good to see that Briggs is popular enough to make it to hard cover, but alas that means this broke reader will have to wait until the paperback to get more adventures from Mercy the shape shifting VW mechanic and her crew.
Demon Inside by Stacia Kane
So this is the first (and only) book I ever made the acknowledgment page of, but I swear that didn’t influence its inclusion here at all. What did was the raw, emotional power of this story of Megan Chase, a psychologist who just discovered she’s part demon and the demons she’s linked to are ones that feed off the pain of humans. A difficult position to be put in, but it’s made worse when she’s called home, to her unloving family after her father dies only to discover that her childhood stint in an institution and her lifetime of struggle with an uncaring, critical family is a complete farce because her father sacrificed her to a demon for his own profit. Heart breaking and overwhelming this is one of the few books this year that made me cry.
Spellbent by Lucy A. Snyder
A last minute winner, this one makes it in by about three days. Jessie Shimmer is akin to a chaos magician and during a spell to summon rain for the farmers of her area instead she and her teacher (and lover) open a dimensional rift and he vanishes. The magical community crashes down on her, despite her losing and arm and an eye defeating the demon that comes through. The man in charge of the area tries, exceedingly forcefully, to make Jessie leave her lover behind. But she refuses even though it costs her her friends, her home, her job, and even her familiar (who is sort of a ferret). But in the process she uncovers a dark secret the community wants to hide, a sense of loyalty and a personalized hell dimension that still has living prisoners. An excellent debut here’s another fantasy world I can’t help but want more of.
The Stats:
Books Read in 2009: 111
Books Reviewed in 2009: 103
39338 word in reviews written in 2009
Below the cut is the list of books I’ve read, if you’re interested.
Here are some of the books I am really looking forward to in 2010:
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard
Blurb: Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A Priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood. Acatl, High Priest, must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Knight of Breton Court: Book One Kingmaker by Maurice Broaddus
Blurb: From the drug gangs of downtown Indianapolis, the one true king will arise. The King Arthur myth gets dramatically retold through the eyes of street hustler King, as he tries to unite the crack dealers, gangbangers and the monsters lurking within them to do the right thing. Broaddus’ debut is a stunning, edgy work, genuinely unlike anything you’ve ever read.
Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews (no blurb available)
Hell Fire by Ann Aguirre
Blurb: I’m still a redhead. Before we left Texas,
I touched up the roots with Garnier
Nutrisse 64-R, and then I had some
tawny apricot highlights put in. I guessed
that meant I intended to keep this color
for a while. Symbolic—I’d made a
commitment, at least to my hair.
As a handler, Corine Solomon can touch any object and know its history. It’s too bad she can’t seem to forget her own. With her ex-boyfriend Chance in tow—lending his particularly supernatural brand of luck—Corine journeys back home to Kilmer, Georgia, in order to discover the truth behind her mother’s death and the origins of her “gift.”
But while trying to uncover the secrets in her past, Corine and Chance find that something is rotten in the state of Georgia. Just a few miles away, no one seems to know Kilmer exists. And inside the town borders there are signs of a dark curse affecting the town and all its residents—and it can only be satisfied with death…
Killbox by Ann Aguirre (no blurb available)
Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane
Blurb:
The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen and constantly attack the living. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Consequently, there are many false claims of hauntings from those hoping to profit. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully-tattooed witch and freewheeling Debunker and ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for nailing the human liars or banishing the wicked dead. But she’s keeping a dark secret from the Church: a little drug problem that’s landed her in hot and dangerous water.
Chess owes a murderous drug lord named Bump a lot of money. And Bump wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is dispatch a very nasty species of undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and crossing swords with enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust with a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it. Hell, yeah.
Demon Possessed by Stacia Kane
Blurb:
Psychologist and psychic Megan Chase has grown remarkably comfortable hanging out with demons. The demon “family” she leads is happy, her slo practice is stabilizing, and she and her steamy demon lover Greyson Dante are closer than ever. But when the couple books a week at a luxury hotel to attend a meeting of demon leaders, some unanticipated problems appear.
An FBI agent with an unhealthy interest in less-than-legitimate demon business shows up; the demon community is urging Megan to undergo the rite that will make her a real demon; and a slightly shady minister is holding one of his wildly popular “weekend exorcisms” just down the road. And oh yes, someone with scary magical abilities is attempting to kill her.
Then, just when it seems as if things couldn’t possibly get any worse, a secret comes to light that could jeopardize Megan and Greyson’s future—if Megan manages to live that long. With things heating up, it’s becoming difficult to keep a cool head…
Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher
Magic Strikes & On the Edge by Ilona Andrews
Perhaps it’s unfair of me to both list these together and to take up two slots with Ms. Andrews’ (actually a husband-wife writing team) work. But to hell with it this is my list and I just cannot express my absolute adoration for Andrews’ writing style. She pushes all my buttons in the right way and to top it off On the Edge has the feel of my mother-in-laws’ rural town that’s my hiding place from the world, AND it has a character that everyone say looks like Sesshomaru from the Inyuasha series. You can’t get yummier. Yet Andrews also packs a wallop of dark, sinister fun into her books making them absolutely irresistible to me. Bully Ms. Andrews and keep giving me more!
Convent of the Pure by Sara M. Harvey
Bestial by William Carl
An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris
Prey by Rachel Vincent
Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
Spellbent by Lucy A. Snyder
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard
As a handler, Corine Solomon can touch any object and know its history. It’s too bad she can’t seem to forget her own. With her ex-boyfriend Chance in tow—lending his particularly supernatural brand of luck—Corine journeys back home to Kilmer, Georgia, in order to discover the truth behind her mother’s death and the origins of her “gift.”
Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane
