BOOKISH: You Are a Writer

I’m weird. I read book reviews for fun. And amateur reviews, reviews by the ordinary reader, are the funnest. Oops, I mean the most fun.

Or the funniest.

On Goodreads, or Amazon, skip the endorsers. The four and five star reviews. Want insight? Humor? Go right to the one- and two-stars. “I’m going to tell everyone I meet for the rest of my life not to read this book.”

What a splendid line. What lovely cadence. How subtle, lasting, and pervasive the humor.

Folks, whoever wrote this is a writer. In a single line she or he has done everything a writer must do. There is only one problem.

She doesn’t know she’s a writer. I finished her rather lengthy review. It was filled with insight and attitude, and you felt sure her writing was better than any in the book she’s reviewing. That old jibe, if you’re so smart, why don’t you write? has been answered.

She just did.

“I hated everyone, including the cat.” This reviewer made me laugh out loud. A real laugh, spontaneous, unexpected. They were commenting on a big-selling family drama. Everyone loved it. But the reviewer found no one to root for, much less care about. They continued, “How does anyone find this entertaining?”

I don’t know. But you’re asking the right questions.

Another one-star review: “I took my ARC” (that’s short for Advanced Reading Copy) “and threw it in a wood chipper. I didn’t want it in my house.” I don’t know about you, but this is a superb image. The sight of a despised book shot out the back of a wood chipper is indelibly imprinted in my mind.

I doubt they really fed that ARC into a chipper. But as every good novelist knows, fiction mines a deeper truth.

A few more reviews. “The best part is the end. It’s finally over.” “I wanted to slap the author.” “This is a comedy? Really? Where? Please tell me, I’m begging you.”

The exasperation is palpable. Visceral. Spontaneous. Sharp and original. Ah, if only these reviewers would tackle fiction!

Maybe they will. They have the right stuff. Better than the endless self-satisfied, elitist, humorless (or worse, terrible humor) novels we get today. Entertaining fiction comes from defying the crowd, not endorsing them. These sharp-tongued commentators at least know the first lesson of good writing.

Go against, or go home.