I’m always pleased when an author comments and says something like, “It’s a thoughtful and honest response, and that’s all any author can ask for.” ‘Cause that makes my day!

Of course, it probably doesn’t always work!

I have noticed though, that mixed opinions throughout the blogosphere often have people more interested in the book than lots of reviews that say — whether good or bad — the same thing. Also, the reviews that get the most feedback from readers are the mixed ones.

~Chris
The Book Swede

Anne — I agree that finding a reviewer whose judgment you find matches yours can help. I have a couple movie reviewers that work that way for me.

Jay — you’re welcome! Glad the post provoked some thoughts.

Lisa — I hasten to mention that the sentence you reference ISN’T in the book, and isn’t mine at all, but some copy editor’s prose!

Elizabeth — I’m not quite to the point where I actively avoid reviews, but I do wonder whether that wouldn’t be a better tactic for me. A really savage review does end up shaking me enough that I lose writing time, and that’s not good.

Keilexandra — I don’t know if I agree. Yes, no reader likes every single book they read, but that doesn’t mean you have to *review* the bad ones. As I said, the (few) reviews I have on my site are of books that I read, enjoyed, and feel that I’d can recommend to my friends and readers. So they’re more ‘recommendations’ than reviews, but I don’t see that doing so necessarily makes me lose ‘credibility,’ nor is it from a ‘lack of guts.’ (Hey, I’ve refused to blurb books from friends when I didn’t feel I could give honestly give the novel sufficient praise.) It’s more a display of the Golden Rule.

Reviews: I don’t read them…I can’t stand to read negative reviews of friends’ books, let alone of mine. They churn around inside, like the start of a stomach flu episode, and make it impossible to work for several days–can’t afford that. As you pointed out, reviews are generally useless to the writer (good or bad) because what they’re talking about is already done and set in type. And that’s assuming an astute reviewer. I’ve had reviews by people who seem to have read someone else’s book (sometimes even getting the names of characters wrong) and criticized bits it didn’t contain. I’ve had reviews by people who used my book as a platform for their own political bias, or who assumed they knew my motivation for writing it, which they didn’t approve of. And even in a good review, some reviewers seem determined to find *something* to damn…and that’s what will stick with me, the bur under my saddle for weeks to months.

So I just don’t read them. I tell myself they’re for reader guidance (though, when I was not published and read a lot more, I didn’t find most reviews useful at all. A few reviewers lined up (pro and con) with my own taste enough that I could risk any book X liked and most books Y hated, but the others were scattershot. It was simpler to go into the bookstore and read the first few pages myself.

And I get enough reader email, including blasts far worse than bad reviews, to keep me shaky at the mental knees.

But if I get a thoughtful and insightful review that’s not all sugar and honey, I do like Marie does and learn from it - especially if they touched on one of those places I already knew was weak

I do have a harder time not responding when a reviewer makes a general comment that is misleading - for example someone said my main character was being “rescued” all the time by the hero - it’s true to a point, she doesn’t know how to protect herself in the beginning, BUT she learns self-defense and how to use a weapon and, by the end, she does defend herself without help. So my fingers itch to send an explanation with examples (page numbers included So far I’ve managed to stop myself.