This may be the hardest thing to explain, but all the positive reviews were making me uncomfortable. Now, there’s a bad one and I’m a bit relieved. Somebody hated it - now I have someone to fight with.
It’s not that I think the person was particularly correct about anything. But people do have their opinions and a bad review, like that one guy in the fiction workshop who doesn’t like anything, is a good leveling agent in that it keeps me from thinking I’m infallible. It’ll keep me from slacking off.
It is the darker version of what James Tate’s poem “Teaching the Ape To Write Poems” does for me. Reminds me that I am, after all, just a hairless ape with a keyboard (and so is the reviewer).
There was one earlier review that wasn’t exactly bad, but, to me, it wasn’t exactly good either. I’m not going to name names or rattle cages, but I will say that the writing in this lukewarm review was worse than the writing in my book.
Anyway. Take your pick. The bad review from Curled Up, or the good review from Publisher’s Weekly, or, better yet, the starred review from Library Journal.
Meh.
About Me
- Quinn
- The Project for a New Mythology is a small, annual literary journal, and I am the publisher and editor-in-chief. This blog is the official blog of my writing life, writing philosophy, literature at large, and, of course, my debut novel "The Evolution of Shadows" available now from your favorite independent bookstore, and online.
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3 Notes to the Editor:
Well, you know, I think a bad review helps. Everyone knows that no book is perfect, so in a way, if most people think a book is great and then someone comes along and says the nastiest thing he or she can think about it - you, as a reader, know whether you can live after reading a book with that specific problem. For instance, I think I can live with reading a book that might have a thin plot than one that is, perhaps, inconsistent or has an insipid ending or is too verbose or is insensitive.
I am glad you put it up, and didn't call the reviewer a nazi either. :)
word verification: kabugh
Well, so far, my record is 10 good reviews, 1 so-so, and 1 bad.
Throw out the very best and the worst and I'm still 9-1. That's bowl eligible book.
I'll actually have more on this later. but first I have some evilness to attend to.
Here's another "so-so" review:
http://scaeamistersreviews.blogspot.com/2009/10/evolution-of-shadows-by-jason-quinn.html
Or Good... Partially bad... Take your pick, really.
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