Long time no rant (11 months, whaaaaaat?), yada yada, I’ve been busy, school, broke laptop, internships, lack of interest in fanfics. Let’s go!

P.S. Since photobucket decided to change its TOS, I am re-linking my images and have hidden chapter 26 until I can fix the links. If you find any other images that do not appear, tell me and I will fix it. The sizes of the images will be f-ed up for now, please bear with it. Also, any poster ideas for this chapter? Suggestions?

As I hope I have made it clear throughout these rants, I love to read. I read all the time. If you were to take a peek on me at any time and saw what I was doing, 35% of the time I would probably be reading (with 15% being in school or doing work, 20% sleeping/eating, 10% socializing, and the remaining 20% being watching videos or gaming or other hobbies, percentages varying due to new job). Reading is my number 1. Due to this, I have really developed as a reader and reviewer in two ways.

I have gotten pretty good at spotting errors in books. I can recognize where an author goes right and where they go wrong. There are very few books I read where I finish it thinking “this is it, the perfectest book yet.” And the more I read, the higher my expectations rise and the harder they fall. The result is that I have learned to rely heavily on reviews to know whether I should give a book a chance. Is it a dud or a bomb?

Previously I would semi-preach that readers should give whatever they read the benefit of the doubt and at least read the first chapter, if not the first several chapters, of whatever fic the are reading. I apply this the same way to regular books and series as well. Read the first 10% of the book and see how you feel about it.

Choosing books to read, however, is a different process. With fanfics you look up the idol or idols who you are a fan of and read about their life in the usual fanfic manner. You know the tags and authors know the keywords they need to use to get readers in. Angst, tentacle smex, mafia, fantasy or whatever you kids are doing these days.

It’s harder to choose random books. You can’t really pick the character of the story, you can’t choose who they love, you don’t control the way the author writes the story through immediate feedback. Books are written and completed (minus some editing through various editions) and reader feedback really only affects sequels.

I say this as someone who lives and breathes books; one of the most devastating feelings as a bibliophile is starting a book only to realize that it is actual garbage. The premise might have sounded great and the hook was good for the start of it, but somewhere along the way your eyes opened and you realized you actually like nothing about the story, amazing plot ideas aside.

When you read a lot of books, that feeling can come from the simplest things and you either learn to finish stories you don’t enjoy, or you stop reading them and research more before starting a book.

So the main point of this rant: how to write good reviews for future readers. Like, if you have a fic recommendation blog/story or something.
 

The purpose of a review for an author is to help them improve their writing. You want to be constructive and give aid, not totally rip the author and their writing to shreds. You give your overall impression and how that might have differed as you were reading. “I thought this would be a really dark vampire story but it turned out to be a bit childish and cute as soon as the characters started interacting with each other.” You want to touch on grammar and editing and how that affects the flow of the story. Address any logical points and any instances that might have needed clarify. Honestly, what worked for you and what didn’t.

There is a lot of overlap for a review for reader use. The readers primarily want to know if they should read something or not. A reviewer should clearly express whether they recommend the story or not or if they think particular readers are suited for the story more. Is there a target audience in terms of age? Is there a that people need to look out for? Is there a specific writing style that some readers might not like?

A typical review on a book for me will include the main characters of the story and a brief description of them. I always take care to include relevant traits without spoiling significant parts of the story. This is very important! Do not spoil the story extensively but do give readers some understanding of what the story includes.

I usually give a general background of the character if I can, a description of their appearance if possible, and their main personality traits. Is this character a coward? Are they sweet? Do they get angry too much? Are they too perfect or too ed up? Most importantly, does the character grow, or how do they deal with situations that come their way (no spoilers)? For fanfics, I do not mean that stupid character profile authors are determined to give in their foreword!

Usually, I introduce the characters in a summary that is also relatively light on spoilers. I like to include what happens in the first portion of the book to more thoroughly set it up. I often read the summaries (or forewords) of these books and I feel on the fence about the plot. The significance of a review summary is that it is different from the one given by the author so reader’s get a different perspective on the story. I might have been looking for a certain genre, for instance I’ve recently been delving into space military, and that leaves a lot of variance for book content so a summary is generally beneficial.

Most recently I was looking for a space military book to read and I kept coming back to a specific book. The introduction was extremely vague but interesting and it was a series by an author I had read before so I knew I could spend some time on the series if it worked out. I still had my reservations though, and didn’t want to waste my time (as is my MO). I was reading the reviews and I honestly could not find a single review, out of perhaps 100, that mentioned the name of the character or gave any context to the story.

I literally thought that the reviews had to be fake. They all had the same basic feel of “Wow, I really enjoyed this book. Great action and great writing. I am definitely reading the next book. I loved it!” I can’t trust that. Did you even read the book? How do I know?

So describing the characters and having a summary allows readers to trust your review and also helps them if they need clarification on the basic things in a story. In addition to your summary, listing out what you liked and disliked about the story is also helpful. Sometimes a reader wants to know what to look forward to, whether that be great action scenes, awesome , or good drama, and sometimes a reader wants to know how bad the story can get.

Looking at the pros and cons is especially important for someone like me who has certain “make or break triggers” that I look out for.

Personally, I try to avoid stories that have too many point of views (though this is not a deal breaker), avoid stories that have female main characters or have weird glorification of females, avoid stories that have bad romances, avoid stories with bad writing (grammar and editing, though not always a breaker), avoid stories with bad characterization (major deal breaker for me) or bad story building (bad plot? DEAL BREAKER!).

At the same time, I love seeing things like good character growth, good world building, unique twists on usually overused plots, no romance or decently developed romance (and good ?).

What I focus on when looking for a review is the cons. I look to see how often an issue is brought up, like bad characterization for the female lead, or I look to see if an issue is one I tend to brush off or disdain. The pros and cons additionally help a reader gauge how similar their reading taste is to the reviewer.

For example, a common criticism that books will get is that there is a lack of romance or the romance is very low-key. That to me is a big plus! To me, when there are a thousand other interesting things happening, romance is just a distraction that leads to the main protagonist making stupid choices at critical points. It seems like a weak plot device used by less creative authors to drive a story. That’s just me though, other people want a good burning romance to liven up the relationships and stir up drama.

Part of the review is being open about your reading experience and taste. If I write a review for a space military book, I also need to include that I am new to the genre (like, only a dozen books finished so far) and don’t know all the quirks of it. To me, as a newbie, the technical parts of the story might be fascinating while to an experienced fan of the genre it might seem redundant. On the flip side, the technical parts might seem too confusing and an experienced reader might use the technical garble to judge how realistic the sci-fi is. Your experience as a reader and reviewer is weighty for being fair in a review.

Every time I bash on female characters, I always preface it with my little spiel of “I’m a female and don’t like when female characters actions are incongruous with mine. I can’t always be empathetic to other females’ dumb actions and feelings.” I have to say, “I prefer more plot and less fluff in my relationships. Slow burning loves are the best.”

In turn, when I see a review that says “I hate when the bottom in the gay relationship acts like a girl or is feminized” I generally have a high tolerance for this but I have to gauge if that means the character is flamboyantly gay or a tolerable character. 

If I have a really strong feeling of like or dislike towards a book, I also include what specifically made me have that feeling (no spoilers!), again minding how my taste in a book might differ from others. 

This is really where the differences in reviewing styles become obvious. When you review for an author, they know the story and you have to try and help them improve it. You need to be objective and not let your personal opinions about characters or plots get in the way. Advice in nice but within reason. Reviews for other readers should be more opinionated. The goal is to inform a reader on whether they should read the book or not. Hate it, love it, found it mediocre. He did this and she did that, the book was written in this POV, the world building was this developed.

If you find yourself in the position where you either casually or professionally review books, do keep this in mind for readers who look at the reviews and recommendations and actually pick books based on them.

Yo, and who else finishes a book and checks the reviews to either find others who agree with their opinion or mock dissenters? I do this for books I love and hate. I try to justify the things I loved and debunk the dislikes of others if it was a good book, and I also trash bad books and feel vindicated by others sharing the same opinion. Sometimes I’m like “if you didn’t like this, you just weren’t thinking deeply enough,” and other times I’m like “stop praising books, you make us all seem like idiots.” I try to make that either my opening or closing line if there are a significant number of reviews with opposing opinions as mine.

[There might (probably not) be a part 2 in the future where the fanfic part of this rant is addressed more.]