I will read anything.
I really mean that; horror, fantasy, speculative fiction, non-fiction, fairy tale re-telling’s, literary classics, YA, magical realism, thrillers and many more have found their way onto my bookshelves (ok… or onto my Kindle if I’m on holiday).
I will ‘give anything a go’ but have realised two things about myself along my bookish journey:-
- I appear to have a trend of not enjoying the literary, highly-lauded books that frequent critically acclaimed lists and which tend to win awards.
- My heart will forever adore fantasy, fairy tales, speculative fiction and YA.
BUT… I will always listen to suggestions and take recommendations and go into any book with an open mind. Ultimately it’s the story that counts.
Do I always love what I read even if it’s something I think I would love? No.
Not every review on here will be three stars (or hearts) and above but I will try and explain my reasons why something didn’t appeal in the most ranty way possible in the best way I can.
My opinions are my own and are completely subjective. Take my reviews with a liberal pinch of salt and then wash that liberal pinch down with a nice glug of tequila.
I hope that you find some books among the archives that you can bite into. Or ones that take a bite out of you.
Books are like that.
I refer to ‘stars’ but I’m sure you can see that I’ve gone with some hearts instead.
It means the same thing.
(A five star review will probably be hard to come by from me as I am notoriously picky).
This book would have had amazing writing, characters, world-building and clever plotting or intricately explored themes.
But as I base a lot of my reviews on my emotional responses (and I am a tad on the emotional side) I would have had a lot of ‘feels’ happening while reading and will probably end up engaging in discussion about this in the pub for a while to come.
This book was one that I enjoyed greatly and had all the components of what makes a book very good for me.
An emotional response was probably had but maybe not to the extent of what I felt for those five star book.
A four star book is a book that I would recommend to the wider audience of book readers.
Disclaimer: Three stars is NOT a bad rating in my eyes.
This means that I enjoyed this book very much (probably in despite of some flaws)!
A three star book in my eyes means that it has a lot to offer in a lot of ways even if it may fall short in others.
For example, I may not have liked the plot or characters but thought that the writing was amazing or…. I might not have liked the writing but enjoyed the story and characters.
I would probably only recommend a three star book to the readers I know would be interested in the genre or style.
This is where we enter ‘not so bothered’ territory.
Two stars can mean that I enjoyed the book despite a significant lack of writing skill, plot or characterisation (or even that I really didn’t like a character) but that I would be embarrassed to admit to friends that I enjoyed it because objectively, it just isn’t that good.
It could also be that this book just wasn’t my cup of tea but I can recognise that there were some elements I enjoyed enough to keep me going and to give it a star above one.
This is probably not a book that I would recommend unless I knew you personally and knew it would be your taste.
We’ve moved from ‘not so bothered’ and crossed the border into ‘oh dear.’ And that’s me being polite and British.
I would have finished the book through sheer force of will but I didn’t enjoy it at all or felt that the book was just not holding up in terms of writing and characters etc.
I will try and find reasons as to why a one star review is given but sometimes it simply boils down to that old fashioned, ‘I just didn’t like it.’ It would be one I wouldn’t recommend and if I’m honest – may even tell people to avoid.
Funnily enough this stands for ‘Did Not Finish.’
Maybe it’s because I didn’t even like the book enough to finish it, maybe it just wasn’t the book for me at that particular time in my life, maybe it’s a book that you need to be in a certain mood to read, maybe I’ll come back and try again someday. Who knows.
Life is too short to read bad books books that you don’t enjoy.
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