~Marcella Nielsen ~
iReflect 2017
~ Mid-Brief Reflection Post ~
My topic is ‘book reviews’ and my aim is to be able to write an efficient consensus of a book by deconstructing its components and analysing its overall delivery. Over the last several weeks I have faced challenges and made mistakes with my work, but I have also been able to evaluate these mistakes and improve on them each week.
I have been writing book reviews casually for five years now, and what I have realised over these weeks are that there are so many components to consider when analysing a book. For example, was the plot clear and interesting? Is it a story most people would enjoy or not? Why and what evidence proves this … etc. The plot is one of many aspects of a book I have to consider. At first I found having to consider so many aspects of a book quite overwhelming and I felt my review would be another novel in itself once written. My first review is an example of this. The word count was over 1000 words and was more of a rant of frustration than an efficiently thought out review. Over the following weeks I took a more objective outlook towards the book and my review. This helped me gather my thoughts and impressions of the book more efficiently as I wasn’t overcome with my own emotions towards the book. Though my judgement and impression of the book is necessary, it must be delivered with fair evidence and consideration of the author. What I have to keep in mind is that I may not have enjoyed the book but someone else might. As I stated in my project proposal “review the book you read – not the book you wish the author had written” (Asenjo, 2002). By taking a more objective route I improved on my word count. I feel I gave a shorter but well informed review of the books in my second to fourth reviews. When writing a review, I am not writing it for myself. I am writing it for the author as a form of feedback on their work but more importantly for potential readers who I am informing whether the book may interest them or not.
What I found I innately did well when presenting my reviews was constantly self-reflecting and seeing what I could do better the next week. I saw how I could improve my design and layout of my blog and also what I could add to further emphasize the aim of my project. Feedback from my peers helped me to reconsider my blog design as one peer commented how the colour of my text boxes did not suit my blog’s overall look. I took this feedback into consideration and changed the boxes to better suited colours the next week. My first review’s layout was more like an analytic essay than a blog. My second review improved this as I added more information on the book and author on the side.
A Dalhousie University (n.d) student advised that every reviewer must know two things. The first was to know the work under review. This means to not only understand the author’s intent behind their work but also how the components of the book contributed towards it. I applied this in my second to fourth posts by doing background searches on the authors, whether I personally knew them or not, and garnered a better understanding of their writing through their past works. In each of these posts I displayed a short background description of the author and also promoted their other written works. The second was to know the requirements of the genre. I had a fairly basic understanding of the genres of each book I reviewed. Despite that, I still researched each genre and the basic mechanisms they should include. I then evaluated if the author delivered that in their book. As I pointed out in my latest review of ‘The Butterfly Project’, the author succeeded, including the overall mechanisms of a successful romance book. In my biased opinion…far exceeded the expectation!
All of the books I have read and reviewed on this blog are Advanced Reader Copies received either by the author or from Netgalley. The purpose of an ARC is to promote the author’s book before it is publically published. My review becomes that much more dyer and important with what I include in it and what I don’t. Again referring back to my first review, I included spoilers of the plot. A peer had comment on one of my later reviews that she was thankful I did not include spoilers on that particular post. This is one mistake I rectified immediately in my other posts as I made sure to give my opinion in my review without including any more information than the blurb did.
Over the next few weeks I plan to continue reading, evaluating and reviewing books as I have – keeping notes on my thoughts and impressions and highlighting quotes that I particularly enjoy – but keeping in mind my overall aim and purpose. I will also be keeping my biased opinions in check and making sure I give the book and author a fair review. I will give myself more time to evaluate the book an each of its components so when I finally write my review it delivers an all rounded consensus. I plan to follow Asenjo’s guidelines on what to include and consider when writing a review as well as other online sources I find.
References:
Asenjo, B. (2002). How to Write a Book Review. Retrieved on 1 October 2017 from http://www.writing-world.com/freelance/asenjo.shtml
Dalhousie University. (n.d). Book Reviews. Retrieved on 1 October 2017 from
https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/library/CoreSkills/Book_Reviews.pdf
Over the past twelve weeks, from developing my idea to executing it, I have grown and enhanced my writing and book reviewing skills. Though, of course my experience with my project has been one with its ups and downs.
Reading is my most favourite thing to do and has been since a young age. As I grew up, my hobby had gotten to the point where I found myself re-reading the same book and thinking “this all seems familiar”. As I mentioned in my proposal I use Goodreads to post my reviews. My initial reason for signing up was to keep track of the millions of novels I went through like toilet paper. It was on this site where I met various other book lovers, got in contact with my favourite authors and became friends with professional to casual reviewers. It was where my ambition of being a book publisher originated and since then has only grown. I, to this day, get notifications on reviews I posted over five years ago, and it was these notifications that bring me back to how I initially used to review a book. Let me tell you that reading the words from fifteen year old me is torturous. I have, over the years, developed my writing and opinions but not to the point where it is both a structured analytic review and a book lover’s review. I feel with this class I have found the balance between both.
This class has pushed me to find other sources, from professional bloggers to popular online bloggers, and use their work to help shape my own. I feel my reviews on my wix site show an all rounded consensus of all components of the book – mainly the important ones such as plot and characters – but also have my personal quirks and humour that, I modestly admit, make each of them original. The multiple comments from my peers on my posts helped me find confidence within my work and writing.
In the first four weeks I had difficulties with shaping a well written piece that covered all components of the book as well as my personally opinion. I struggled to contain all these thoughts and opinions into a structured and insightful review. As I mentioned in my first reflection, I took a more objective route and made more time for myself to evaluate my thoughts and impressions. I found that in the first few following days after finishing the book, my thoughts and opinions were subject to my emotions. In the last four weeks I feel I successfully overcame this trial and was able to write with a clear mind - an open mind - as I also made it a goal to connect with the author and their writing outside of the book. I garnered a better understanding for their motives and what was going through their head as they wrote the book and this perspective helped me better connect with their writing as I read. I believe my final few posts to be a huge achievement in delivering an all-rounded consensus of the books I read but of course I will only continue to further my reviewing skills from here on out. By following Asenjo’s steps and self-reflective questions, I managed to broaden not only my range of reviewing skills but also my reading content.
Professional book reviewers cannot be impartial to certain genre’s (Capps, 2016). This is something I found I initially did. When I would look for a book to read or would receive an ARC [Advanced Reader Copy] one of my ‘deciding if I want to read it’ factors would be the genre. For example, if it were a horror book, I would turn it away immediately. I was never truly interested in mystery thriller books either, but I made it a goal in my proposal to read books from a range of genres. In the past four weeks specifically I managed to read four books from completely different and ‘not-the-norm’ genres than usual. The genres were Dark Romance, Mystery-Thriller and Horror; each genre I scarcely, if ever, read about. I found this experience eye opening and rather surprising as I loved each book! This primary goal I set helped broaden my range of reading content as I went out of the box of what I found comfortable. It opened my eyes to a new world of writing and new feelings of anticipation and excitement.
I feel I have personally developed my writing and enhanced skills in book reviewing. I will continue from here on out to broaden my reading content and remember to take time to evaluate my opinions on a book I review. If possible, depending on my free time, I’d like to make an official book blog where I would take to the public my writing and reviews. The idea is one that terrifies me but I feel it will be an experience I will ultimately benefit from, especially as I work towards my future career.
References:
Capps, S.T. (2016). Tricky at Times. Retrieved 29 October from https://literarytitan.com/