Reviews: My Most Insightful & One That Slightly Missed The Mark – Stuart Aken

Author Stuart Aken reacts to two of his most honest reviews.

Buy An Excess Of … 

This 5* review went into detail on several levels:

“If author Stuart Aken had started this book with, “A bishop, a rabbi, an imam, an atheist, an acolyte, and a grieving widow walked into a bar,” you would expect a joke. But An Excess of . . . is no joke, nor is the deserted island on which this disparate and increasingly desperate group find themselves with little hope of rescue after a harrowing shipwreck. How will they cope? What alliances and alienations will form? In this page-turner, Aken’s characters face one challenge after another, mostly successfully but not without strife as their true identities and proclivities emerge, their conflicting worldviews are laid bare, and they say, do and experience nothing in moderation – hence the title, which applies not only to the characters but also to the underlying theme of man’s general inability or unwillingness to confront his impact on our endangered planet. It is intense. Still, there is humor, adventure, and romance along with the danger, and you will want to keep reading to discover the surprising resolution.”

Stuart reflects, “It’s relatively unusual for a reviewer to detail the essence of a story without giving away too much of the plot. It’s also not very common for a reviewer to understand and reveal underlying themes. In this review, Walt Pilcher has done both, earning my sincere gratitude.”

The following is an extract from a 4* review of the same book:

“It's more brutal than I thought it'd be, and it becomes clear as the narrative progresses that there's no guarantee of anyone making it to the end alive, which was quite refreshing. I'm withholding one star only because some of the conversations are quite on the nose. Nothing wrong with getting a message across, but I feel it could have been more organic.”

Stuart says about this review, “This is from an honest review, but I wonder if the final two sentences reveal more about the reviewer than about the book; is this, perhaps, a case of a reader recognising their own prejudices in one or more characters? Not a criticism, but a reaction to their presented viewpoint. Of course, the passion of some of the thoughts and words of the players may well uncover subconscious bias in any reader.”

Stuart Aken has authored many novels across many genres. Find out more about his work – including his work-in-progress – on his WEBSITE. 

Read more about Stuart Aken HERE. 

Feeding the Creative Soul – but not with Stars!

In a previous post I said I would return to the star system beloved of review sites. Online review sites almost always insist on every book being categorised in the range of 5* (best book in the world) to 1* (worst book in the world).

I have a problem with that. If I was to put my mind to a genuine categorisation of every book I read, then on the whole each would be different. If compelled to stick with 1 to 5, then I want to be able to give stars for lots of different reasons: how good a read was it, how involved did I become, was the characterisation believable, was I lost in the fictional world, did the facts stand up, was the background research meticulous and objective, how was the opening page, did it grab me from the first sentence… I could go on. And what a waste of time!

I also have a problem with allocating stars to a book that did nothing for me. Do I say ‘Bored rigid from start to finish. 1*’? That doesn’t seem fair if what bored me was that it was a historical novel and I wasn’t in the mood for a historical novel because I’d just finished a sci-fi book. If I knew the period well and could say, ‘Bored rigid by anachronisms and lack of research,’ or if it was non-fiction and I could say, ‘Bored by lack of accuracy and out of date research,’ that wouldn’t be so bad. At least those are valid objective reasons.

But who am I to put off other readers with my 1* when it’s based on a subjective judgement?

The other thing I won’t do is review a book I haven’t read, and that takes care of the examples above because I wouldn’t have finished a single one of those books. Why would I be ‘bored rigid from start to finish’ of any book? I don’t go out of my way to seek out boring experiences.

Despite all this, I still rather treasure an early review that appeared on Like False Money, which is now published as part of the Falling into Crime trilogy.

“Really enjoyed the book but it came badly packaged – 2*” 

I review books that I have enjoyed and with very few exceptions, I give them all their stars because I rarely have an objective reason not to.

Feeding the Creative Soul – Book Reviews

Writers need reviews; they need feedback from readers, they want word about their books to spread and what better way than by word of mouth via a review? 

But of course writers are readers too. Reading feeds creativity and so does reviewing. There’s something about thinking in depth about a good book that can spark ideas almost from nowhere. Many of the best reviewers are also successful and prolific writers. Indeed, writers more than most should be conscientious about reviewing what they read.

As a writer I know that all too well. Do I live by it? I’d love to say an unequivocal yes, but I can’t. One reason is time. If I’m going to review a book, I want to write something about it, not just tick a random number of stars*. I tend to ‘stack’ my reviews, save them up until I get into a proper review mood and then catch up the backlog. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes I leave it just a bit too long and as I sit down to put pen to paper I realise that I don’t remember enough about the book to say anything coherent, so it has to return to my read-again pile and hope that I’ll catch it next time round.

I’m just in the middle of a bit of a review frenzy at present. Not expecting to clear the entire backlog, but HERE is a recent one.

*more on the tiresome star system in a later post.