Saturday, July 14, 2012

Sue's Saturday Suggestions #4



Interesting Books

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, review at Calico Reaction

Dark Dates by Tracey Sinclair, review at Fangs For the Fantasy

Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge, review at The Book Smugglers

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, review at SF Signal

Grave Witch by Kalayna Price, review at Vampire Book Club

House of Shadows by Rachel Neumeier, review at The Book Smugglers

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, review at Reviews and Ramblings

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, review at Stella Matutina

Sharps by K.J. Parker, review at Fantasy Book Critic

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff, preview at Fantasy Café

What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang, review at Cuddlebuggery


The ARC Controversy

For those who have not heard, there has been much blogger bashing and general unhappiness seemingly triggered by some bloggers taking “too many” ARCs away from the ALA Conference.

Thea at the The Book Smugglers includes a piece about the debacle in her weekly news update.


Stop the GR Bullies

Some authors do not like negative reviews of their books and sometimes they respond in a very unprofessional manner. This has been an issue on Goodreads for quite a time now. I find this particularly worrying because I post negative reviews myself, working on the principal that I want to review every book I read and that I believe that ignoring bad books undermines my integrity as a reviewer. I always try to be as calm as possible in these reviews, which can be difficult sometimes, and emphasize my disappointment rather than spewing hate at the author.

Sparky at Fangs For the Fantasy has a post about a new website blacklisting reviewers who are accused of being bullies.

SB Sarah at Smart Bitches Trashy Books has some words about the difference between bullying and reviewing.


Giveaways

Alliance Forged by Kylie Griffin at My Bookish Ways

House of Shadows by Rachel Neumeier at The Book Smugglers

2 comments:

  1. It's a difficult one this bad/good review issue.  I must admit that I don't tend to have a lot of negative reviews but I think that's because if I'm not enjoying a book I stop reading it - which is something that I used to feel was not 'the done thing' but these days I don't want to continue reading if it's not a good experience.  That being said I still do read through books that are just so-so and even then I try not to say anything too strong because I tend to think you can tell whether somebody has enjoyed a book or not by the tone of their review.  So whilst I don't really say anything bad I also don't wax lyrical about it.  There are of course the odd exceptions where I've maybe read a book that just supremely naffed me off and I wrote about it whilst the feeling was still strong!
    Lynn :D

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  2. I understand what you mean. I set myself the goal of reviewing everything I read once I started the blog, so I do write the occasional review for a book that I did not enjoy or could not even finish, and they are so much more difficult than the glowing ones! However, I always rate my books on Goodreads and I hate to put up a one star rating with no reference to why I rate the book so low, which is another reason why I write a review. I recently had an author ask what I didn't like about his book after I left a 1 star rating but before I could get my review up there with some explanation, so I do feel justified in explaining my low ratings. I also try not to be rude about the author, which is where I think some reviewers cross the line. I have read some hilariously snarky reviews, but I try to remember that this is someone's baby that I am calling ugly and try to be as positive as I can whilst being honest about my likes and dislikes.

    Having said all that, I do think that people have the right to write pretty much whatever they like in a review and I do not believe that revealing reviewers' personal details to the world is nothing other than bullying. It seems like there are elements on both sides that have forgotten that they are writing about real people with feelings and so they behave in a manner that they never would in a face-to-face discussion. It is a shame that people can behave so badly when they have the anonymity of the web to detach them from the reality of their actions.

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