I Used To Work For A Trade Book Reviewer Where I Got Paid To Review People's Books, And One Of The Rules

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got paid to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Update: This is literally just a thought exercise to help you be more intentional with how you critique media. I'm not enforcing this as some divine rule that must be followed any time you have an opinion on fiction, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to structure every single sentence in a review to contain zero negative phrases. I'm just saying that I repurposed a rule we had at that specific reviewer to be a helpful tool to check myself when writing critiques now. If you don't want to use the tool, literally no one (especially not me) can or wants to force you to use it. As with all advice, it is a totally reasonable and normal thing to not have use for every piece of it that exists from random strangers on the internet. Use it to whatever extent it helps you or not at all.

State of the bookshelf 3/10/23

(I’m so frustrated! I have to remember not to compose posts in Tumblr’s stupid post editor since it keeps eating my posts. Gr…)

Anyway. State of the bookshelf: I’m canceling March. March books will be postponed until April. That includes

On Teaching Children

The Black Tides of Heaven

Whatever else I was planning for March, idk

In the meantime, here’s what I’ve been doing instead

Finished rereading (for the umpteenth time) I Shall Wear Midnight (Pratchett), Network Effect (Martha Wells), and Fugitive Telemetry (Wells again)

From the library, being resolutely ignored: Wintersmith and A Hat Full of Sky (Pratchett) and an America’s Test Kitchen cookbook

Rereading The Last Continent (Pratchett) and Maskarade (Pratchett)

Reading Hamilton by Chernow again (I didn’t finish it the last time, so it isn’t a proper reread)

Reading Over the Woodward Wall by Seanan McGuire

Rereading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (this is only my first re-read, and it’s been so long, it’s almost like I’m re-discovering it)

Other projects planned

Reply to replies! I WILL get back to you I swear >_<

Post: “Pronouns and personhood in 3 SFF series”

Related (mini) post: “Discworld Does Gender: a DIY reading list” 

Post: “The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (series) recommendation”

Post: “The Frog Princess (series) recommendation”

I'm toying with a post about YA fantasy series that do fun things with gender roles, but we'll see if I get the spoons

Next week we have our kids camp, and I’m still in a box kingdom, so I guess I might be MIA for a hot second. Happy reading!

Murderbot 7 doesnt come out until November tho

ladies we need to start frantically and obsessively reading books in less than 24 hours again..remember how happy we were

Today is March 12, sir Terry Pratchett Memorial Day, a day that is important for me to remember. This man, his books, helped me a lot in my childhood and are helping me up to this day. Therefore, every year I draw a lilac - this is a kind of a way to say "thank you" to a person who unfortunately will never hear it. But the world will hear his name once again, and a man is not dead while his name is still spoken.

And let us not forget

The sci fi maxi pad

Excited to start this book, but ...

That is a space dong

Finished ancillary Justice, started a ancillary Sword.

The themes of civilized vs uncivilized, "real" people vs idk mere humans, colonial-/imperialism are so strong. Even moreso than last time. It hits hard.