To Review or Not to Review ...

I'm happy to say I was able to steal some time to read over the holidays, and I’m adding a number of books to my Goodreads shelf today. I feel obliged to comment on the fact that, for the majority of these books, I am not assigning a rating or writing a review.* I enjoyed reading each and every one of these works (otherwise, I would not have finished them), but I am reticent to rate and review books within roughly the same genre as my own TRANSCENDER (i.e., YA Fantasy). Call me squeamish, but it just seems bad form somehow.

As a relatively new author, I know how incredibly difficult the writing process is and how much effort goes into coaxing a finished manuscript out of the germ of a story idea—and that’s only fraction of the larger process of bringing a book to publication, and actually selling copies. Consequently, I believe every author who has lovingly cultivated a book to completion and successfully delivered it to the marketplace deserves my praise and admiration.

I’m grateful for every honest review of TRANSCENDER; because it helps me better understand what resonates with readers and what falls flat. Reviews have always been an integral part of the world of literature, and I frequently read a few before purchasing a book. So I hope those of you who follow my reviews will forgive me this little idiosyncrasy. I'll continue to rate and review books that fall outside of the YA Fantasy genre.

*Since rules are made to be broken (don’t tell my kids I said that), I have given a five-star rating to Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races, and I’ve written a short review. In my opinion, this book stood out from all the rest. I highly recommend it.