Books (Photo credit: henry…)
So, if you follow my blog at all, you know I love books. Love to read them. Love to talk about them. Love to voice my opinions about them. Love to hear other people’s opinions about them.
But what about books that don’t elicit much more than a “meh”? Do I write about those too?
I must admit, it doesn’t happen very often that I can’t find something to say about a book. Even when I don’t like a book I still have opinions about the writing or characters. But every once in a while, I’ll read a book (or 2 or 3) that are fine, even good, but which I know will not stand out to me in a few weeks’ time.
My blog, scattered in subject that it may be, has included posts about every book I’ve read since I launched for real in March. But now I wonder…I try to post daily Monday-Friday. Do I want to dedicate an entire post to a title about which I only feel lukewarm?
I don’t want to skip the books completely. After all, alenaslife has become a journal of sorts. I can look back over the months to know what I was thinking, where I was going, and what I was reading.
For instance, in June I read two books that were good, not great.
cover image from Goodreads
The Snow Child (Eowyn Ivey) got some pretty amazing Goodreads reviews and seemed, based on its description, to contain a bit of magic, which usually appeals to me. While the descriptions of 1920s Alaskan homesteads & wildlife were outstanding, I don’t think I connected strongly enough with the main characters. In the end I wasn’t sure if this novel was a fairy tale or not.
cover image from Goodreads
South of Superior (Ellen Airgood) is one of those books you might pick up at a discount store. It has a truly terrible cover, but I did really love the main character, Madeleine Stone. She’s bright and tenacious and flawed and interesting. No surprises. No brilliant prose. Just good, escapist, romantic fiction in a rugged, Upper Peninsula setting.
I certainly don’t want to disparage these titles. (When I hate a book, you’ll know it, and you’ll know why.) I’m considering an occasional group post – a kind of “Also Recently Read.”
Thoughts?
alenaslife 
I recently read For One More Day by Mitch Albom. Did you read it? What did you think of it? I found it thought provoking and it inspired a blog post from me.
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I haven’t read it. I’ll have to look for it.
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I know what you mean. There are a lot of good books out there, worth the read, but you probably won’t remember them six months, or sometimes even one month, later.
For me, its worse if I hated the book, or if the problems were so major that, even though I found the premise, characters or plot line intriguing, the issues with the writing got in the way of what should have been a great read.
I struggle with whether or not to ignore those books in my blog. I don’t feel like I have to review everything I read, especially if its not new on the proverbial shelf. But the stuff I thought was sub-par… On the one hand, I don’t want to trash anyone’s work. (A holdover from the teaching I received at my Mother’s knee, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”) On the other hand reviewers, regardless of the size of their following, kind of have a responsibility to tell the truth.
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That’s truly the balance Cheri, isn’t it? Truth, passion, importance. We all want to keep our blogs a reflection of us. Thank you for the thoughtful reaction.
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Well, if you DO decide to blog about the “just OK” books, do it quickly, because if you are anything like me, you won’t be able to remember them for more than a few days. The question is, is it worth writing about our “distractions”….books that occupy us for a while but don’t take us anywhere? I actually DO remember South of Superior, but mostly for the bad cover art, and only a little bit for the new knowledge I picked up about northern Michigan terrain and the apparent difficulty of life on those shores.
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ahaha
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For the “meh” books, you should talk about them so your readers could stay off those! 😀 😛
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After reading some of the comments, I found some really good ideas about how to blog about books/events/things that you are thrilled about. Thanks for writing the post and getting us to think about what we are reading and our thoughts about it.
On a side note. What do you do with all those books when you are done?
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Most of the books I read are library books. I could never afford to read as much as I do otherwise. I borrow and pass-along some paperbacks and I am now going to do give-aways with books I win or donate them to the Friends of the Library Book Sale.
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