Matt Geiger's Blog - Posts Tagged "reviews"
The good, the bad and the ugly (reviews)
The only universal advice I ever received from other authors was to ignore reviews.
Not the good ones, of course. Those critics are intelligent, insightful, and physically attractive. Their reviews should be read, re-read, photocopied and distributed to everyone I pass on the street. The bad ones. The ugly ones. Those, I was told to ignore.
Ones like my debut book recently received from a book critic in a humid, far off land full of escaped pet snakes with a taste for little children, ravenous sinkholes, and people who lack the physical (or mental) strength to properly vote in elections.
Reading a negative evaluation is a painful experience. After all, you bare your soul in a book, so it’s a little like getting a performance review from a scorned lover. Sure, the criticism hurts, but the passive aggressive comments, tucked into the article to look like compliments, sting even more.
This particular critic compared my book to a series of well-written (yay!) blogs (oh no!). As everyone knows, any author would rather write a bad book than a good blog. The same way a farmer would rather own a bad cow than a really good mosquito. The same way I’d rather have a bad case of hay fever than a good case of bubonic plague.
Getting told your book is like a well-written blog is like being told you have a nice little penis. It has the same kind of impact on your ego, at least.
He closed out his review by saying my stories could be amusing in small doses. High praise indeed.
I thought about ridiculing the critic. About making him pay with a really well-written blog about him. But that would be beneath me. I’m certainly not going to call this feeble-minded troglodyte names.
And he should be commended for taking the time to review my book, even if he didn’t like it. I’ve heard the treatments for syphilis can be time consuming and costly, so it’s impressive he found the time at all. Plus, since I used to live in his particular state, I know that no one there can read, which surely made reviewing my book fairly difficult for him. I’m not even sure how he evaluated it. Possibly by feel, or taste, or by seeing if his sister/cousin could throw it the entire length of their doublewide trailer.
There was also a big, fat typo in the middle of the review. Something glaring and unsightly. I’ve never been so happy to see one in my life.
“See, buddy?” I thought. “It’s not so easy, is it?”
But all that would be beneath me. All I have to do is come to terms with the fact that my writing is not beloved by all 7 billion people on earth. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but I think I can handle it.
And I just heard the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, which has critics and readers who are beautiful and kind and genuinely literate, plans to publish something about my book next week. Hopefully, if I get lucky, they’ll say something nice. Maybe they’ll even decide it’s a bad book, which would be great.
Not the good ones, of course. Those critics are intelligent, insightful, and physically attractive. Their reviews should be read, re-read, photocopied and distributed to everyone I pass on the street. The bad ones. The ugly ones. Those, I was told to ignore.
Ones like my debut book recently received from a book critic in a humid, far off land full of escaped pet snakes with a taste for little children, ravenous sinkholes, and people who lack the physical (or mental) strength to properly vote in elections.
Reading a negative evaluation is a painful experience. After all, you bare your soul in a book, so it’s a little like getting a performance review from a scorned lover. Sure, the criticism hurts, but the passive aggressive comments, tucked into the article to look like compliments, sting even more.
This particular critic compared my book to a series of well-written (yay!) blogs (oh no!). As everyone knows, any author would rather write a bad book than a good blog. The same way a farmer would rather own a bad cow than a really good mosquito. The same way I’d rather have a bad case of hay fever than a good case of bubonic plague.
Getting told your book is like a well-written blog is like being told you have a nice little penis. It has the same kind of impact on your ego, at least.
He closed out his review by saying my stories could be amusing in small doses. High praise indeed.
I thought about ridiculing the critic. About making him pay with a really well-written blog about him. But that would be beneath me. I’m certainly not going to call this feeble-minded troglodyte names.
And he should be commended for taking the time to review my book, even if he didn’t like it. I’ve heard the treatments for syphilis can be time consuming and costly, so it’s impressive he found the time at all. Plus, since I used to live in his particular state, I know that no one there can read, which surely made reviewing my book fairly difficult for him. I’m not even sure how he evaluated it. Possibly by feel, or taste, or by seeing if his sister/cousin could throw it the entire length of their doublewide trailer.
There was also a big, fat typo in the middle of the review. Something glaring and unsightly. I’ve never been so happy to see one in my life.
“See, buddy?” I thought. “It’s not so easy, is it?”
But all that would be beneath me. All I have to do is come to terms with the fact that my writing is not beloved by all 7 billion people on earth. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but I think I can handle it.
And I just heard the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, which has critics and readers who are beautiful and kind and genuinely literate, plans to publish something about my book next week. Hopefully, if I get lucky, they’ll say something nice. Maybe they’ll even decide it’s a bad book, which would be great.
