Review Angst

I enjoy writing reviews - gives me a chance to read books I might pick up in the store, keep my pulse on the industry, the type of writing and the direction of our authors. I like seeing the different writing styles, noticing authors strengths, identifying most of our weakness, the things both I and other writers do. I like it. I actually love it. But I screwed up a review something awful.

The first time I read it, I actually laughed out loud (which is why I won't mention the book here). Something about the intro vibe and prologue had me expecting something deep and reflective. Instead I encountered this sing song, rhyming simplistic stuff. Sucking my teeth, I closed the book. Disgusted, I shook my head, sick of the easy out that erotica has become. "If I wanted to read Dr. Suess, I would dig through the kids book shelf" I thought.

A few days later, I tried to read it again. I skipped some of the intro stuff and found a few of the short stories to be decent reads. With noticeable flaws. Keep in mind, for some reason it was impressed upon my psyche that the book was a reflective narrative of love, not "I want to jump on your lap and screw you" stories. I read a few of the pieces to my husband, demonstrating how tired I am of the slipping standard of creativity. I closed the book again, revisiting a deeper, more literary and complicated effort. That novel, entitled Mpire was so stimulating to my fantasy/sci fi fiction starved mind that nothing, really, could compare.

But the review on the first book was due. By then I had the flu, my husband was beginning his losing battle with pnuemonia. I didn't even start from the beginning. I just finished up the book, having picked it up midway through in a crestfallen manner, and wrote a lackluster review. I gave it a horrible rating, which I thought, at the time, was still decent, considering. How do you lead a reader into what should be inciteful and inquisitive reflection and write about whip cream dreams?

But then, I received another collection of poems to read. And while the writer had a good idea - the book was really bad. I mean, I didn't want to blast that author, but there was no getting around it. The book wasn't complete, the time hadn't been taken to develop it and his reflections were a little too blah. The book club for who I provide reviews asked that I be more definitive in the review, because I attempted to write something nice while giving him a low rating. The rating is what it is and the review should justify it. I reread that collection and felt certain that I had made the write call - the book wasn't ready to be a book. I updated the review to clarify my position.

But, in the back of my mind was this nagging thing. The first book hadn't been anywhere near as poorly written as the final one that certainly deserved the lower rating ( I had actually given them the same rating). Whether I personally liked it or not, the author had done a much better overall job, at least. To appease my mind, I bumped the rating up a notch.

Last night, when the book club finalized my review, they went to the first one and asked whether I wanted to thicken it up a little. Remember, in my disgust, I had left the review a little thin. This time, I printed out the text, and reread it from cover to cover. I released the preconceived notions I had and just read it. While I still had some complaints about the beginning stuff and some of the stories, the substance was good - a few of the stories were deep. Deeper than I remembered. Actually, I felt like I was reading it for the first time. I closed it and started again. Funny, how I had missed that poem, and why didn't get the point of that story? Had I done a literary snob thing, so convinced of moral superiorty that I hadn't given the book a proper chance. No longer held to the restriction of woman enlightenment that I initially placed on it, it was an enjoyable read. SO then I compared it to other erotic pieces and trust me, it was better written than some other books I have read that received an equivalent review.

So, at 3 oclock this morning, I drafted a new review and bumped the rating one more notch. I am sure the book club will find questionable, and I can't really explain myself. I read did read this thing over and over again. And I really did believe in the first review at the time I wrote it. I think I just had to realign my expectations, readjust my reading caliber. And while I felt ambivalent about the first rating and subsequent rating bump, this time I believe I got it right. The significant change calls into question my judgment, which is why I did some reserach before admitting that I had gotten it wrong by giving it a fair bump. It would be wrong, wouldn't it, to leave the review low just to save face? I messed up, I know, but every now and then we have to have the nerve to say we made a mistake and fix it. This time, I did just that.