Things to mention in a book review

[Simcha Lazarus]

I recently started writing book reviews for my website and I've been wondering if there are certain opinions that should be left out of a review, even though I feel strongly about them, because I don't see any other reviews doing it.

More specifiably, one of my pet-peeves is when an author uses a particular word or phrase over and over again in a book, to the point where it is distracts me from the story. The thing is, that almost all authors seem to do this but I rarely see anyone mention it in a review.

For example, in one of Kim Harrison's books she kept describing characters faces as going "blank" or "slack." In generally I don't think these are very descriptive words for an expression but the fact that she used them on almost every page drove me to distraction. But I didn't see anyone mention this in any reviews of the book.

I also just read a book where the author kept describing a character as "smirking" even though this expression was not inline with the character that the author had created (imagine Mr. Darcy from Jane Eyre being described as "smirking"). And about half way through the book this word was suddenly being used with a lot more frequency then before. Since this bothered me so much I want to mention it in the review of the book but I was wondering if this would be considered irrelevant to most people and something that I should not bother mentioning despite the fact that I feel strongly about it.

I would appreciate any opinions on the matter from other book reviewers

Thanks,

Simcha

[Mandy McClanahan]

Also along the lines of the plot spoilers conversation, I've noticed quite a few book bloggers/reviewers who will post complete summaries of the books before they review them. And by complete I mean every little detail. I try really hard not to do that with the novels I review, because as a reader I'm turned off by blogs that do that. I read reviews (and I'm sure other people do this as well) to decide if they want to read the book. If a reviewer tells me every little detail about it, it doesn't matter how good that book is, I now know everything about it ....why should I read it?

I feel that there should be some sort of summary information line that shouldn't be crossed in interviews. But then maybe I'm just an opinionated beginner in the book blogging world.

[Emily]

I noticed this same thing! When I started reviewing books the way I got around accidentally giving too much in the summary is to limit myself to 50 words to describe the book. It's almost a game to try to describe the story and not go over the word limit and also gets me on to the review pretty quickly.

[Emily]

When I write reviews, I write about the things that stand out to me the most. If those things were positive, usually my review of the book tends to be positive. If they were negative, chances are the review will be negative, or at the very least, less positive than it could have been.

My reviews of books are really me writing about my experience reading the book and what the book did or did not do for me as a member of the audience. I feel like each review is a personal thing and reflects how you felt after reading it, so if you read something and the repetitive word usage was what stuck out to you (to use your example) then you should be the one to make the decision of whether or not to include it! I just finished reading and reviewing a book where the violence towards the female characters was so strong that it completely canceled out anything positive that I had to say about the book, so you can bet that that element is pretty strongly featured in my review.

Basically, if you think something should be included, include it! Maybe the reason that something hasn't appeared in any other books is that you're just the first person to pick up on it, in which case you're including something that's going to make your review stand out from the pack.

[Sophie]

As a side note, i am slightly amused by this. I am also laughing because I mention this to my friends all the time and they tell me I am imagining it. There was even one time I stopped reading the book and started scanning the pages to count off how many times the word was mentioned.

But back to your review question. I think if it distracts enough from your reading experience it is worth a mention. Maybe not coming straight out and saying that there was the one word that drove you nuts, but mentioning a tendency, by the author, to repeat him or herself.

[Simcha Lazarus]

Perhaps we should start a group just to can complain about "tics" ( a new word I learned from this site) in books we are reading, to other sympathetic readers. :)

[Sheila DeChantal]

I just read through all the comments and was going to mention a lot of what I see has already been said -

Be tactful and honest in your reviews. You are right, mentioning something that you find to be distracting in a books is not a deal breaker for future readers. I have read blogger reviews on a book where they will mention something about the book that did not appeal to them and I appreciate their honest. If I am truly interested in the book that is not going to stop me from reading it unless it is something offensive that I am thankful they mentioned.

Biggest thing for me - is reviewers dont give away too much! There are book blogs out there that when they review they write too much about what is going on in the book and the results of what happened... giving away parts of the book I would have enjoyed discovering for myself. I will not read reviews like that.

[Books For Sale]

I always mention weird things that bother me. Chances are if a word whisker tickles you its going to irritate other readers as well. ;)

[Patricia Ramirez]

I totally agree with you. My pet peeve is the overuse of one or more adjectives or adverbs. One book (the name escapes me) constantly referred to laugher as giggling. Regardless of the gender of the laugher, or the situation. Drove me absolutely nuts.

That being said, I recently visited a blog that had a feature I loved. In addition to a synopsis and review, she had added a "Things I love and Things I Hated" header where she listed her likes and dislikes with bullet points.

[barnsdale11]

I think you could mention it, yes, but maybe, since it's a little off-topic, at the end of the review. I always try to put my overall impression on the book first, and also smaller at the end. And in the middle, things change. But as long as your opinion is clear through the review, i think it's okay to mention all those little things. More often than not, i do, too :) (only not specifically with tics, just the little things that i notice).

[Simcha Lazarus]

Although I originally started this post to ask about mentioning irritating repetitions in reviews, the fact that so many responses brought up the issue of not giving away too much plot in the review has me wondering - how much is too much?

I like to give detailed reviews, describing the basic plot along with the personalities of the central characters, but sometimes I have trouble figuring what I should tell and what should be left out.

Another problem I sometimes have is when something occurs at a critical point in the story that really bothers me and I feel that the reader should be aware of this, but if I reveal the occurrence I will be giving away a key point in the plot. This happened in one book that I was reading where the protagonist gets raped towards the end of the book, which I felt was a completely inappropriate thing to happen in this otherwise lighthearted book and I didn't feel the author was suited to dealing with the ramifications. I ended up mentioning the rape in the review, even though I was giving away something critical to the story, because I just felt it had to be brought up. I am curious as to what other reviewers do in such a situation.

[Victoria Neely]

This would be a good thread: What NOT to mention in a book review. At what point does a review become too detailed and spoilerish? Frankly I'm curious about that myself, since there's more to it than "don't give away the ending."

[Stacey R. (AKA Aubrey)]

Yes include them! I see this mentioned a lot in the YA book blog world actually. Specifically about the Twilight series.

If something sticks out to you and it bothers you as a reader you should mention it in your review. Your blog is your place to post your opinion of a book. Whether people agree with your like or dislike of a book and the reasons is other people's decision.

I for one like knowing if a book is repetative. As a member of a writer's group it is one of those things I circle a lot in other author's writing and say things like "you just used X word four times in two sentences...."