Cheryl’s Comments (group member since Jul 30, 2011)

Cheryl’s comments from the More than Just a Rating group.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Beth https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4... reviewed Mortal Fire

As I told her, I especially liked:

"It's so deliberately constructed - and the characters don't grow as much as experience events and advance the plot - that the characters feel like chess pieces, and the author's hand, moving them, is always visible."

Part of the reason I liked this was because I find it often in books I read. Beautiful writing, interesting ideas, but weak characters. I've been calling them 'iconographic' or 'cardboard' or 'shallow' instead of 'authentic' but I like Beth's metaphor much better, especially as it includes the author's hand bit.

Have you hit *like* on someone's review, but wished there was a way to hit *love*? Post links to and excerpts from community reviews you find on goodreads here. Let's learn from the masters!

But do not steal their genius; do not plagiarize. And please, if you do like the excerpt, do follow the link, read the whole review, and hit *like* there. If you're up to it, comment to the reviewer why you liked their review, what was special about it.

Margaret A. Edwards was an energetic, devoted, and brilliant pioneering YA librarian. One thing she thought important was having copies of annotated lists of good books to distribute to young people. Of course, each annotation had to make the book sound appealing, and be brief enough for a busy teen to read, perhaps while browsing the shelves looking for a book to take home right away. Many of the points Edwards made about writing effective annotations could also apply to writing effective reviews - especially of books we liked and want our friends to consider.

3. Avoid too many adjectives. Instead of saying the story is interesting or delightful or exciting, use nouns and verbs to tell what was interesting....

4. ... active voice...

5. The best annotations for young adults get moving with the first words. Somebody should be doing something....

8. Do not overrecommend [sic] the book.

9. Include statements that place the book in its proper time and place.

10. [before submitting] read the annotations aloud.

11. Only occasionally begin annotations with A and The.

12. Never use the word You.... overly familiar... patronizing.

13. Do not repeat the title or any information it gives.

Btw, characters are really important to me, especially female characters that are fully developed 'real' people. I have to be able to relate to them, or at least care deeply about them. I cannot stand cardboard / iconographic characters.

So, I'm going to follow your reviews and send you a friend request. Please keep writing *something* about the books you read!

My reviews are mostly on Leafmarks, but I'm not sure you'd be interested in reading them anyway because I've never actually read any of the authors you mention except one children's book by Erdrich.

Well, in my opinion (and the opinions of many other folks I talk to), you don't have to be objective. In your review, you say exactly what you did or did not like about it, just as you do in your question: "I admired the beautiful writing, but it's not a good book for me, because the female characters aren't strong or well-developed, and, in this book especially, I could not relate to them."

If I'm truly bemused, that is to say, if I'm sure there are lots of people who would adore the book, and they'd do so with good reason, and I'm just being idiosyncratically fussy, I skip the rating. But I always try to find something to say in the review space, to help other ppl who are trying to decide whether or not to read the book.

I don't think it's been said so well before! I totally agree.

Hey, that's a neat idea. I have a tablet, but I've never gotten the hang of 'writing' on it... too slow for me.

I appreciate that your review is thorough and give lots examples.

You are showing off your vocabulary a bit too much, I think. I'm not sure you know exactly how to best use every fancy word you use. Otoh, it's fun to read your review because those words are interesting. I guess I'm reminding you to be careful not to go crazy with the big words.

I have no idea what this bit means:

" It screams that life is much more than the monotonous routine some mistake. There dialogues sometimes teach what to do, how to do, when to do, where to go, whom to trust."

Overall I do like the review, but not quite enough to hit the like button on it.

My two cents, since you asked. :)

I answered!

:smiles:

Divergent is probably your best review. You get very specific about exactly what you like, and what the author does to make you like it that way. It's clear, engaging, and helpful. I didn't even notice any typos. :)

You got a little carried away with your praise for To Kill a Mockingbird, imo. I think you wanted to use beautiful language to express strong feelings, and you almost succeeded.... But I'm left a little unsettled, wondering, for example, what 'shadow of tangibility' really means....

And there's a couple of tiny mistakes that careful proofreading would catch, too. My favorite way to proofread is to read aloud. Some people also like to read from the end back to the beginning, sentence by sentence.

City of Bones... Well, you told us how you feel, but not so much why you feel that way. I think, maybe, if you want to write a review as if you're not responding to thousands others, and *then* add in your response, it might be stronger. As is, you share more emotion than substance. But I do like your analogies. :)

Just, edit the sentence w/ 'provide a prove' cuz I don't understand what you're saying there....

Uglies was a little confusing, especially the phrase 'excited all the time' and the paragraph it is in. However, you did engage me enough to want to read the book sooner than later, and entertain me, too.

However, I wouldn't admit that you read so many books in 40 minutes while at the library, unless they were Boxcar Mysteries or other early readers. Someone reading your review will think you read too fast, not carefully enough, and not think your opinion valid, or your review worth reading. Imo.

The Sword of Summer needs proofreading (decreased, quits, and not sure what you mean about candour being third...). Otherwise it's witty, thorough, engaging, and helpful!

Btw, an update on me. I now post all my reviews on leafmarks.com. I crosspost a few to here, but I don't like how commercial GR has gotten and am not nearly as active here as I used to be.

:smiles:

Well, right now this over here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... is our most 'friendly' thread. Maybe you you'd like go there to post a link to one of the reviews you've written that you're not sure if it's a good review or not. Or maybe you'd like to list a book that you want to write a review for, but you're not sure to how to start.

Also, there's lots of other threads to explore. When I set up the group I tried to organize all the stuff, and I do monitor all the threads, so go have fun, and I'll be ready to respond if you decide to comment anywhere!

Hello Hallie! Are you looking for suggestions on how to write better reviews, or encouragement to write reviews more often, or do you have tips for the rest of us? The group is quiet right now, but ready to wake if you want us to!

At least Vonnegut says so, and many primary teachers do, too. But here's a video and an article summarizing Vonnegut's thesis:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wo...

One of the graphs reveals a story with no arc. Vonnegut says, ""But there’s a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: it’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is."

Here's what I said over there:

What I'd recommend you do is set up a blinkist shelf, shelve the ebook (or, if that doesn't exist, the default) edition, skip the star rating, and mention in your comments that you are / are not interested in reading the whole book, based on this summary.

I might also mentioned something I learned from the book, if I were confident that it would be interpreted the same way if it were taken in context.

And that's the main drawback of summaries like these, Cliff's notes, etc. - you're trusting someone else to decide how much context to give, and what to leave in/ take out.

If there's a non-fiction book I don't want to read in its entirety, I get a copy from the library and skim it myself.