Jennie Shaw Really Nails Her Book Reviews

Goodreads: How do you approach your blog? Do you start with the book you want to review, with the book cover, with the nails?

JS: It's evolved a little bit. I started out doing "cover-inspired" manicures, but I've moved toward trying to paint the covers as accurately as I can. As I've evolved, I've started getting ARCs [advance review copies of books sent out by publishers], so my reading schedule is filling up! Since I'm not going to love every book that I read, I decided early on that I'm not going to pee on anyone's parade. If I don't like a book, I have no interest in spreading the reasons why I didn't like it. What I don't like, someone else will love. I don't want to contribute to not having wonderful things to say. If I don't want to scream at people about how great this book is, I don't review it and I don't paint the mani. The manis take a long time, and I need that fangirl enthusiasm.

Goodreads: So, you find a book that you love and are going to review. Now tell me about the manicure part of this.

JS: I've learned to streamline my process a bit. Now on the first day, I'll do the book cover's background as my base coat. And I'll do that at night. It's usually the easiest part. It's just matching the background color and texture. And then I'll come in the next day and usually do the title first, because that typically takes up the most space. Then I'll work in the background. When I look at a book cover now, I almost see it in layers.

And then it dries, and I let it dry forever because there's nothing that makes you want to cry more—I mean, like crawl into a fetal position—than when the top coat smudges! The top coat is important, but it can also make me shake my fist at the sky when it ruins hours of work!

Goodreads: That brings up a quick question: How many polish colors do you own?

JS: A lot! Well, my husband made me a nail polish rack, and I think it held 150 bottles, and I outgrew that pretty quickly. It's really been the last six years that the polish has gotten out of control. Then he built a rack for me that's double the size; it is also full now. China Glaze put me on their mailing list in the fall, and that's changed everything. Now the polish comes in the mail like magic!

I mean, I live in the country, in the middle of nowhere, and it's crazy to hear from people that they like what I do. When anyone sends me anything, a message or follows me on Twitter, I'm like, "Really?!" I just love it so much! It's beyond any warm and fuzzy feeling, really.

Goodreads: What was the hardest book cover to paint on your nails?

JS: Oh, recently it was probably All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella’s Stepmother by Danielle Teller, because there were 4,000 details. When I saw the cover, I knew it was complicated, but it's Cinderella's stepmother's origin story! I talked myself into it by saying, "You can maybe, even if you don't do the whole thing, maybe you could do a fern and that one flower."

Usually with those book manis, I only do one hand because I'm going to do a picture and then take it off. But if I'm going to go meet an author, I'll do it on my other hand, too. And that's probably the hardest because I'm painting with my nondominant hand.

Goodreads: So, let's talk books. Tell me, what are your favorite reads so far this year?

JS: OK, I loved All the Ever Afters. The author is a doctor, and how does she use both sides of her brain so well? She took that fairy tale we know and love and traced it back with things like, "Where does the glass slipper come from?" "What about the evil stepsisters?" "How does a truth become myth?" She did this with, here's a pun, a surgical retelling. She really made Agnes her own character, and I felt for her. And, trust, by the end of it, I was like, "Cinderella who? I'm team Stepmother!" I've read a lot of retellings, and I've never read one that does quite what she did.

I loved She Regrets Nothing by Andrea Dunlop. That book took me by surprise. I was not expecting to get as sucked into that. The writing was almost melodic to me. I loved The Favorite Sister, I loved Tell Me Lies, and the male point of view with that one was just extraordinary. And The Map of Salt and Stars was so good. That book was so beautiful; mixing the modern story with the fable gave you a break from that raw emotional content. It almost seemed to have more impact, because you had that chance to catch your breath and go back in.

Goodreads: So, that's a lot of genres! What do you like most?

JS: I'm a very greedy reader. I just want to have a taste of everything, like it's a big buffet. First and foremost, magic. It's like I'm upset that I'm not magical! Victoria Schwab? My gosh, I could read her all day. Leigh Bardugo! Holly Black! I should preface this with darker magic. I will read anything if there's magic. Even if I'm not super sure about the premise, the magic will make me want to give it a chance.

Goodreads: How many books are you reading? I mean, you're only reviewing books that you really love.

JS: I average around 80 a year. My Goodreads Reading Challenge goal for the last few years has been 80, and I think I hit 81 a couple of times. I'm ahead this year. Last year, there were so many amazing books, and I'm finding even more this year. So I'm reviewing a little more than I usually do, because there's so many great books that I want to scream about. For reviews, I do anywhere from about 35 to 40 a year. Again, this year is shaping up to be the most ever. I review everything: mystery, thriller, dystopian, adventure, horror. I'm not really a big romance reader. Again, I need something a little darker, like Tell Me Lies with toxic romance? I'm like, yeah, OK.

Goodreads: Is this still a hobby for you? Is this a career?

JS: I've been pretty adamant that I don't want it to become a job. I genuinely love doing this. And I do it first for love. I don't want it to feel like a chore. Yes, I feel pressure, like anyone who uses social media does, to keep posting and keep to a schedule. But I don't want there to be anymore pressure than that. The sensation that you're drowning in your TBR [To Be Read list] is bad enough, and I already have that on the daily. I really only try to have four or five ARCs a month, however many weeks there are, so that I can still read a book for pleasure, and if I want to review one of those, I'll try to squeeze it in. But I don't want to have two books to review in the same week; that's too much. So, I'm slowing it down a little bit.