In a perfect world, every review will be easy to write and it will reflect exactly what I think and feel seamlessly.
Unluckily for me, that’s not quite how it works. I’ve been known to put off reviews when I can’t find the best way to review it (even though, in some cases, I loved the book) until my thoughts have marinated a bit and I can finally put my feelings into words. But I also have a rough outline of when I want certain review posts to go up (ideally, I’d like to review at least a book a week), which leads me to a dilemma: do I publish a review even though I’m not 100% happy with it, or do I simply delay the review?
To be completely honest, I’ve done both. You may have noticed that I haven’t reviewed very much lately, and I think this stems from the fact that I don’t want to post reviews for the sake of posting reviews. Of course, I also don’t want to leave things for too long… I remember Tanya from 52 books or bust saying that she has to finish a review before starting a new book and I really think it’s time for me to start doing something similar to that.
Do you ever feel the same way? Have you ever posted a review you weren’t 100% satisfied with? How do you keep up with your review schedule, if you have one? I’d love to know!
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I have a weird problem wherein I find myself composing wonderful reviews in the shower and then drawing a complete blank when I sit down to write! I only review on Goodreads.
I do agree with you about delaying or just not posting when I can’t formulate a cohesive review. I always promise myself I will get back to it and finish, but usually don’t…
Haha I do that too! I have so many great ideas in the shower and then I spend the rest of the shower trying to memorize what I was thinking of… hahaha
So, I just started my blog Jan 1 of this year, so take that for what it’s worth, BUT I’ve been a long time reader of blogs long before then. My current schedule is a review every Monday, which so far has been completely do-able. I don’t feel like I have to review every book I read. Some books I just don’t have enough to say, and then I will do a “Round-Up” type review where I lump a few books together in one post and do mini-reviews. I tend to write my reviews within a day or two of finishing a book, otherwise the details just float away. Even if the review doesn’t go up right away on the blog, at least I’ve got my ideas down, and can tweak it later. Not sure if this helps at all, but I find these things just work themselves out. I don’t know if this plan will always work for me, but for now, it does. https://bookishtendencieskatie.wordpress.com/
P.S. What did you think of Boy, Snow, Bird? I swear, I have a complex over this book.
I can’t believe you only started your blog this year! I never would have guessed – your blog is so good! I think I should start doing round-up reviews too so that there isn’t so much pressure to write a long review when I don’t have much to say.
I really liked Boy, Snow, Bird. Passing is something that really intrigues me, so it drew me in instantly here. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about the ending, but overall I enjoyed it. Is your complex a good complex or a bad one?
Thanks for the kind words on my blog. 🙂 I like mini-reviews, because even if I don’t have a TON to say, I always have SOMETHING to say, and I think it’s helpful to hear a word or two on what people thought.
Ugh, a bad complex. I REALLY hated Boy, Snow, Bird, and feel like it made absolutely no sense. I think I just don’t get it, and don’t get what the book was trying to do. It’s on SO many lists and things for best of last year… and I feel like maybe I’m just missing something……
Such a hard one! I like to keep reading, whether I review a book or not – when I started blogging, I decided I didn’t want my blog to get in the way of my reading 😉
Celine at NyxBookReviews posted recently about how she keeps reviews in her drafts section and publishes when she’s ready. That to me sounds like the best of both worlds, since I sometimes like to “marinate” also after finishing a book, but want to get my thoughts down.
That’s a great attitude! I agree that it should always be pleasure first. I’d like to do what Celine does too – maybe I just need to push myself a bit more!
I’ve never been satisfied with a single blog post I’ve written. I just feel like getting it out there, getting a discussion going, or at least getting people as excited about a book as I am. But really being satisfied with what I’ve written? I think it would take me years to complete each post 🙂 I remind myself that I’m doing this for fun, and while I want it to be good, I don’t need to post the perfect review for every book. And I do wonder if you even CAN write a perfect review for the books you really love as you’re always going to be so emotionally involved that the words become tricky. -Tania
It’s hard! I do think getting past the “everything needs to be perfect” hump gets easier and easier the more I post. It’s hard to define what a “perfect” review is; to get a discussion going it a great goal to have!
Same as Cornelia, “I don’t want my blog to get in the way of my reading” (well said!).
Some books, I found, are easier to review than others for some completely arbitrary reasons which often have nothing to do with how I liked the book. It’s just that sometimes, I know exactly what I want to push forward. Sometimes, I have no idea. If I stall on a review, I put it aside for a while. Also, I found that doodling ideas and thoughts about the book can help sometimes.
Oooh, I’ve never thought of doodling! I’d love to see your doodles!
this is one of the reasons i committed myself to monthly recaps/reviews instead of individual book reviews. i WISH i could do individual book reviews, but, like others have said, i don’t want the (self-administered) pressure of having to write a review to get in the way of my reading. also, just knowing my personality, i tend to put things off until i’m satisfied, and i already delay my monthly posts sometimes because of my procrastination — i don’t want to know how much of a backlog i would have if i tried to do individual posts! i’ve got tons of admiration for all y’all who do book reviews!
instead i cheat and write other, open-ended posts on mondays and fridays and write-ups of book events. ^^
What works for you is the best way to do it! It sounds like you’ve got a great thing going 🙂
I’m going with what Tania said, above. I don’t ever expect my reviews/posts to be perfect, but I want to get them out there anyway, since it’s the reason I started my blog in the first place – just to share my thoughts on books. It’s partly for myself, anyway, and it’s just supposed to be for fun (for me, that is).
Katie’s idea about the mini-reviews is good. Mini-reviews can help to get you caught up quickly, or can help you say at least a few things about some books that you don’t have much to say about.
I also do the draft thing – I write down a few main things I want to say, then when I have time, I go back and try to make them sound better.
I should really start writing drafts! It would make my thoughts more organized I think, instead of having disconnected thoughts swirling around my head…
I’m finding that I need to wait at least a few days before writing a review just so I can process my thoughts without jumping the gun in a review. I don’t think I’ve ever reviewed a book I didn’t like. (When I was a music reviewer, that was a different story.) One of my goals this year is to write more book reviews though! I am a little scared of them still. I’m trying to find my own way of writing them.
PS is this picture of books you didn’t like? I still haven’t read One More Thing and it’s sitting patiently on my shelf.
Haha I’m ashamed to say that the photo is a recycled photo from a monthly recap I did last year. I liked One More Thing; I’m not a huge short story reader but the style Novak wrote in made it easy for me to love them.
I’m echoing Tania and Naomi – I’m never completely satisfied with any of my reviews. But there comes a point where you can’t think about it any more and you just have to hit publish. Often the reviews that I feel really good about get no feedback and the ones that I’m less sure of get lots. It’s not an exact science.
It’s so weird when that happens! I’ve had that experience as well!
Oh yes I am the same way. There are several books I have read this year that I haven’t reviewed. That is mainly because I didn’t really have strong opinions on the book. I would rather delay the review than to half ass it.
That’s very fair!
I have to admit that I *have* posted reviews that I didn’t love — but I always wonder how much of that is just my inferiority complex. I have a review schedule that I try to stick to, but I wind up shuffling things around pretty frequently if a book takes me longer to read than expected, I read in a different order, or I can’t find the words to write about a book. I think that structure mixed with flexibility makes it easier to ensure quality. I also think scheduling posts farther in advance helps; if I read a review a month before the review is going to go up, I have plenty of time to write about it if I am not able to write something I like immediately after finishing.
Scheduling posts in advance helps SO MUCH. I really need to do that more often. I think flexibility is important; I’ve definitely shuffled things around a lot too.
My reviews are all over the place. I wish they were witty and insightful and fun to read. But then sometimes I think, what does it even matter what I think of a book, who cares? Haha. So I just do what I do and trudge along. But I start my next book when I’m ready and review the last when I feel like it
I’m kind of like you where I read when I want to and review when I want to 😛 I do like writing reviews, but I have to be in a certain mindset in order to do it well!
Yeah I’m with Tanya – I don’t move on to the next book until I crank out some kind of review. Some are easier than others. Reviews can be imperfect but I do endless tinkering to them. Cheers
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