I think I have sort of decided to give up the label “book review” for my post. More and more, and especially now that I am reading more classics, I have a feeling my posts are about my personal responses and the questions and thoughts I have after reading a book. I am not really reviewing. I think I might have started this blog thinking I would try to write “real reviews”, but in the end I think my blog is more of a reading diary. Then again, I have felt that way for months and I have never felt the need to let go of the word review. I am not sure why it suddenly started feeling so wrong to use it. But lately it got almost painful to select the category “Book Reviews” when I posted my thoughts on a book. So there you have it, my incoherent reasons for not wanting to call my posts reviews anymore. I am left with a few questions:
- I know there are more bloggers out there who do not use the label “review”, I was wondering, what do you call the list of books you have posted about, if not “Review Directory”?
- Same goes for: Does it mean you no longer have a “review policy”, does it imply that as a blogger you can no longer accept books “for review”?
- Do you enjoy my style of posting lately, or do you feel strongly that I should return to a “review” format? And I know my posts on Jane Eyre might be a bit much, but I cannot help it. I will not post multiple post on each book I read, but if I feel the need to, I will.
You could call your directory, books i’ve read?
Hm, that’s interesting. I never noticed a bad connotation in ‘revoew,’ but I see what you mean. Maybe I’ll change mine to ‘final thoughts’?
I like your posting style of late! I like a stroll through the reactions as a — journal style, as you say. I think it’s far more personal than the more formal review.
I might change the format on mine, too…
Lol.
rivoew = review
Stupid keyboard. :rolleyes:
Whatever you decide to call your posts, I’m enjoying them! I think if you feel uncomfortable choosing the “book review” category, you should listen to that inner voice. And it’s natural for your style to evolve as you blog more; it’s good that you’re recognizing that.
I’ll be following your posts with interest, to see how your new approach differs from “reviews”.
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Actually, the book blogs I enjoy most are those that have the “reading diary” style / format. It’s more interesting to read thoughts and personal opinions of readers of a particular book rather than reading a thesis-type blog. It’s just easier to connect, that’s why.
I don’t read a whole lot of classics, but when I do, I sort of feel the same way. I surely am not going to say anything that hasn’t already been said, right? I’ve never given this a whole lot of thought, but bottom line I think you should do what feels right to you. Whatever it is you are doing, though, I like it!
Maybe it is because I never properly studied literature at school, but I think that the term “review” can be as generic, and malleable as one wants. I call what I do “reviews” even though I know they don’t even approach being proper reviews. I even put “Book Review” in the title of each post because it drives traffic from search engines for people looking for book reviews. And I think that is justified because when I look for online reviews of boooks for my own interest I skip all the professional sites (newspapers, journals, etc.) and look for the blogger reviews, even though I know they won’t always be proper reveiws. But then again I like reading reviews that tell me something about the review writer and their likes and dislikes. I think professional reviewers like to think they are pushing all that personal stuff to the side but what they really do is just mask their own biases. Anyhoo, if you like things in their proper place and don’t want to call your reading diary entries “reviews” you might try “recap” or “thoughts on…” or “impressions” or “my fabulous take on…”
I enjoy your “not review” writing format
I guess I just don’t feel that labeling my incoherent thoughts review is that bad. To review means sharing your thoughts, talking about a book and offering critique, and that’s what I do, even if my style is not that professional 
As for labels, maybe you could use the word reflection instead of review for your posts? It’s the first one I could think of
Interesting observation although since we almost all do the same, and all call our posts reviews, it may be that you will be the only honest broker in the lot! :–)
When I write a post I use the word ‘thoughts’ instead of review. But I still use the word review for my directories & categories, simply because I haven’t thought of a similarly convenient alternative.
In general, I prefer reader’s thoughts and reactions to books rather than a formal literary dissection. I agree with Bina that it is not dishonest to label these reactions a review – it is just another style of review. Thanks for prompting an interesting discussion!
Very interesting Iris. I’ve seen more people not call it review and it makes sense. You are still accepting books for consideration, perhaps? And even if you don’t call them reviews, I think it is still fine to have a review policy and say that you accept books for review, just also maybe state that you will be posting your thoughts and impressions rather than what you consider to be a regular review?
I can see why you don’t want to call your reviews reviews anymore but I don’t know whether it really matters. I guess you don’t put in a summary of the book but merely describe what you think of it. Is it a review? Well maybe, I find it hard to say what is a review and what is not.
I find “review” a big name too and I’m never sure whether my erm, “things”, qualify as reviews.
I know in Dutch I don’t like to call what I write “recensie”, which means “review”, and I prefer “verslag”, which means “report”. But I’m loose with words. I call myself a vegetarian and I do eat some fish.
I’m enjoying your posts no matter what you call them (and the Jane Eyre ones too!). I don’t use the word review and I think when I started my blog I debated that issue (with myself). For what I had in mind for my blog it just felt too formal so I decided against it. I just use the label “book” and have a page titled “Reading List” for the books I’ve read. If I have blogged about them I create a link for the book on there.
I don’t use the word review for my posts. They aren’t formal reviews anyway. I just like to share my thoughts on books I read. They are more like recommends than reviews. I list my books by year i.e, 2009 books, 2010 books. Not all of them have been posted about, just read. When I read a book I love, I want to share it. And when I read a not so well-written book, I want to warn people to not waste their money.
I like how you write your posts, they should be done they way you want
I’ve gone back and forth on the review/not really a review thing several times, and I can never decide how I feel about it. I say review in my post titles because it makes my posts more easily searchable, not really because I think of myself as a reviewer in the way that, I don’t know, Laura Miller is a reviewer. I sometimes write about books in a critical review-y way, but more often in a personal-response way. I just don’t know an alternate word that is like “review” but lacking the connotation of being all criticism.
I tend to think of “review” in the sense of “going over something again,” but agree that it might be a good thing for bloggers to come up with a word of their own, to differentiate what we do from what print reviewers used to do in the 20th century!
I don’t really have any issues with the term ‘review’ but I know lots of bloggers do. I say do what makes you comfortable because after all you are blogging for yourself, right? And if you do what makes you happy, then your readers will be happy:) Btw, I’m really looking forward to all your Jane Eyre posts!
I think that maybe in the blogging world its all a matter of semantics. We are all reviewing books… but from our own perspective. Its not a professional thing. I think that if you are just talking about your own experiences of reading a book you are still reviewing it… but from your own perspective.
Im not sure what else you could call it… maybe just use the title and author as the title of your posts and in the menu you could just say “Book Read” or “Books” or “Books Discussed”?
I’ve also been thinking about this recently, so it is kind of heartening to see these comments. They’re reassuring to me, letting me know it is OK to still write these types of reading diary posts that are more thoughts and reflections and how the book relates to my life than a dissection of plot, characters, etc. (although I’ll delve into them, too).
On her blog, Beth Kephart uses the term “reflections” (i.e. “Reflections on [title of book]“) which I have thought of borrowing. But, as others said, I’m sticking with Book Review because of the search engine hits (not like I get a ton of those, but still.)
Hope this helps … and as a fairly new reader to your blog, I am enjoying ALL of your posts.
I myself don’t like using the word “review” (at times I write ramble, or thoughts or some other word) because I was brought up reading scholarly reviews of books I want to read and goodness, my posts aren’t like that at all. But if you think about it, review, as a word, encapsulates what I want to say about a book (or movie or something else) even if I feel that it is too pretentious at times. In the end, review is a personal reflection, reaction, evaluation or what-have-you to something you’ve read (seen or experienced). It may not be an erudite account of a book that scholars (or those students looking for an easy term paper answer to book reviews) prefer, but see all reviews (thoughts, reflections) are personal whether or not you call them reviews. Just my two cents
And it doesn’t matter what you call them. You write interesting posts and that’s why I follow your blog.
I feel the same way about my posts and the word “review”. It has formal connotations for me that I’m not always interested in living up to. I use “Books Read” for my list of posts. Whatever word you decide to use for them, I’ve been enjoying your recent posts!
I have also thought about the fact that I don’t actually review the books but rather share my thoughts on the book. My “reviews” are usually not critical or scholarly in any way but are really more an introduction to the book for other readers. I think there are many of us who don’t actually review!
However, I don’t think there’s a problem with still using the terms “review policy” and such because I think that publishers are smart enough to know that book bloggers all like to do it a bit differently.
My husband prefers to think of books the way you describe here, and sort of the way you’ve been doing with Jane Eyre. For him, a book calls to mind other things, which make him think, and then he ends up writing about those things instead of the book proper. He won’t write “reviews” anymore either.
YES! Exactly! I feel very self-conscient about using “review” in my blog exactly because in the end, they’re just personal ramblings about the book. And I use very colloquial language as well.
I used to use “review” in a more “all encompassing” way, but since starting to blog I’ve notice that people do make a distinction. I’m still using the tag “review”, but in the actual post and twitter I use expression like “thoughts on book X”.
I’m 100% for personal-thoughts in amateur (in a good way
) book blogging. It engages more discussion.
The idea of a true formal review of the classics does seem funny, doesn’t it? I agree with leaving the term behind, although I’ve been quite persuaded by the comments above that the word review can actually mean anything you want it to. Perhaps with different books you’ll choose a different style? I’m loving the new perspective and especially the Jane Eyre posts!
I’d like to write things more as you do, in a reading diary format, rather than a review. Somehow I worry book blogging has to be very formal, with stiff regulations of how and when to write about things, but everyone seems to do what works best for them and I’d really like to loosen up in how I write about books too.
I’m also really loving all the Jane Eyre posts, keep going as long as you want to! It’s great to see all the issues you’re raising.
When I moved from WordPress to a self-hosted site, I switched from “Review: ___” to “Thoughts on ___” when I write up a review-ish post about a book. I, too, started feeling a little uncomfortable calling my thoughts “reviews!” I changed my “Reviews” page to “Books,” figuring if anyone wonders what that means they can click on it and find out. I do still have a review policy, and I do accept books for review. Maybe that’s a bit contradictory of me!
I like the format of your last few posts, though I’ve not read Jane Eyre and, therefore, haven’t read too closely in case I ruin anything before I read it! The more I read book blogs, the more I realize I like it when posts about specific books are colored by the individual blogger’s style and impressions.
I always like your “reviews”
I tag mine as “stuff I read” – I read it and told the Internet what I thought about it.
My reviews are also rarely like reviews. The term however kind of forces me to reduce my rambles and structure my posts in a certain way. Not sure if that’s good or bad though
i’ve been thinking of ditching my rating scale but think that it’s a good and quick barometer for other readers. reviews are subjective responses to books, and it matters not what we call them. i’m not trying to pen any critical analysis when i review but do point out some basic literary, structural, and plot elements.
reading responses, reviews, whatever, i’ll continue reading other bloggers’ reviews because they hold merit for me. so, whatever your decision, i’ll keep reading!
I also do not call any of my posts reviews. Like you I think of my blog as a sort of reading journal–something for me to look back on and read so I can recall what a book was about and what I thought of it–and of course if others want to read my posts and chat about the book I’m very pleased. I think it is impossible for me (who has no formal English lit training) to write something formally on classic lit. I feel like I am just trying to learn and understand and certainly not instruct anyone else. I don’t accept many review copies, though I have a small pile I need to work my way through–I write about them in my own way, but they are not at all formal. And I’ve never used the tag ‘review’–my tags are a mess and I’m sure it is hard to find things, but I’ve just not gotten around to sorting things out! I think you should write about books in whatever way you feel comfortable–I quite enjoy reading other readers’ ideas and thoughts on a book even if it is not a formal review!
Sometimes I have the same issue. I don’t want want to write a formal review on certain books. I’d rather just reflect on certain aspects of it. You could call them “reflections” or something like that. I recently just labeled it “vagrant thoughts” when I read Pride and Prejudice AND Mockingjay because I really just wanted to just write freely and not worry about it being in review format. I like your thoughts no matter what they are labeled!
I tend to agree with Thomas and Becky. Review is a useful all purpose term – you can make it mean what you want to a degree – that people use and search engine recognise. If you want new people to come to your blog it’s a term that will help bring them here. You could always do a little “review manifesto” in the sidebar describing what you mean by it, saying you use the term loosely?
I have to say that I totally agree with you here. I have some books that I feel are not so much about “review” but about response. Just because you’re gearing away from reviews doesn’t mean that you can’t accept ARCs from time to time and still do that, but I like your insight into what book bloggers do. In some cases it can be a real review, and in others, that just doesn’t work. Great discussion!
I try not to use the term review, as in my mind it has connotations of critic/criticism & I only write about books that I’ve enjoyed. For me personally, life’s to short to write about books I didn’t like, so what tend either to ignore the term (review) totally or use some other halfarsed term like write up, which doesn’t describe anything , but I can’t think of any other except maybe Post, which I sometimes use but don’t like as it makes me think of lamp posts etc. so in the end a lot of waffle, but not much help .
Parrish.
I call mine “reviews” but I fully accept that they are not and never intended to be “reviews” as such. They are my personal reflection on the books I’ve read. I like your multiple posts on books (although I’m just now responding to comments) and I think you should write how you want.
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