Books, books, and more books! Since this the very first post, I I will use this one to give some insight into the criteria I use when I review books. I definitely do not want anyone blindsided or curious as to my method of madness. I figured, and you can tell me your thoughts, but that I will use a scale of 1 to 5. In order to gain the full point, the book MUST meet the criteria I have listed below:
Quality of Content
Originality
Entertainment
Accuracy/Historical Accuracy
Design of Cover
Quality of Content: This is probably the most important. This includes the themes, message(s), character development, scene setting, descriptions and word usage/verbiage. Is the book an easy read or simply filled with long winded sentences filled with huge words that it sounds like the author hit up the thesaurus a million times so they sound intelligent? Does the book flow or is it a dud? Can the reader make sense of the timeline? One of my favorites is deciding if the character(s) are annoying or not. I mean really, do we really want annoying characters? Are we compelled to finish and do we have care and empathy or not. The base content is beyond important. It keeps us enthralled in the story line.
Originality: Honestly, who wants to read the SAME thing over and over? Yes, there are base themes that every book has and those are introduction, conflict, and resolution. That is not what I am talking about here. Are the conflicts unique? Does the author use third person or first person narrative? Does the book provide a different view point? Are the characters exciting, yet relatable? Does the author give us something different than other authors in the same genre? Sometimes it is the classic, girl meets boy, girl doesn't like boy at first, but girl has crisis and girl falls for boy when he helps. But how does the author make this unique? Or simply, does the author make it unique?
Entertainment: Now this factor is VERY important. Why? Because if the book does not catch and KEEP your attention, will you finish the book? Probably not. That is not to say that in some parts of the book, it might get boring, or you might be ready to throw in the towel. However, as long as you have the innate want to know what happens then the book has the entertainment factor down.
Accuracy/Historical Accuracy: This applies to all books, well accuracy does at least. If the character is an Accountant and the author says that he/she does not do well with math, well, how accurate is that? Not very. Accountants must be good at math. Where the book takes place needs to be accurate. You can't very well have a book taking place in the Caribbean, but describe it as an arid, cold wasteland. Now we will dive into the idea of historical accuracy. This obviously applies to books in the genre of historical fiction. Historically, these books need to well researched for the time period in which the story or part of the story takes place. To mislead readers is definitely a big no, no. On a side note, I LOVE historical fiction, so be prepared to see quite a few!
Cover Design: Why is this important? Especially if we are not to judge a book by its' cover? Well, let's be honest folks, when we are browsing the bookshelves in a bookstore or your local library, we get caught by the cover. We ask ourselves, do I want to read this book? The cover will capture our attention. It will draw us in to pick it up and read the back or it will not. Marketing the books is very important. It gets the author noticed and into the world they have been dreaming of---the world of notoriety and author prestige. As they sell more books their fame goes up as people read their books and reviewers will either make or break them. But first, people need to pick up their book and the cover is the "it" factor.
Now, these won't necessarily work for the "self-help" type books, but if I do review one then I will be sure to add the criteria I use of these type of books. Nonetheless, this list of criteria will be used for the up coming reviews you will read about in this blog. I do hope it serves me well. Happy reading!
*picture credit: https://www.pexels.com/search/book%20aesthetic/ it has beautiful pictures.