I set a goal at the beginning of the year to basically read a book a week, though I made the goal 50 instead of 52. I don’t remember my reasoning, because I don’t think reading needs a two week vacation each year, but since I’m currently slightly ahead of the goal I’m keeping it.
I used to review almost every book I read. I believe it helps smaller titles gain momentum, and any independent author can tell you reviews matter to the ever-looming “algorithm” of what gets shown during searches.
At some point, I basically stopped reviewing. I’m not going to lie; I made it cumbersome. I got in my own way. I tried to keep up with a paper reading journal, adding the reviews to both my blog and Goodreads in turn, writing then typing then saving. I’d forget to do some and spend several hours doing it, trying to comb back through my memory (not the greatest, to be honest), especially when I’d binge read five similar thrillers during vacations.
I tried different systems. A list on the blog with links to the books and a picture of the cover. Links to my Goodreads reviews. Links to stand-alone reviews on the blog. Books that didn’t link to anything at all. Short reviews on the blog list. Mini-reviews on Instagram.
Right now, I’m not sure I have a system at all, except I try to star everything and add the dates to my Goodreads page.
Oh, and I struggle with stars. I used to give lots of things threes, but that didn’t seem to correlate with what other people did. For me, three was pretty much, “I enjoyed this and would recommend it to certain people.” Four meant, “I loved this and would recommend it to most people.” Five, for years, was more like, “This book lives in my perpetual top ten. This book changed my life.” Then I started to understand three wasn’t really a “good” rating among many of the readers I respect. I started giving more fours.
Now, almost everything gets a four. Fives are more like, “one of my faves of the year” instead of “I will adore this forever, both for appreciation of craft, meaning, and overall impact on my life.” So basically, the stars don’t mean as much to me as they used to.
Aside: I would LOVE a system that was more like: I would recommend this book to people who liked X, Y, or Z or I would recommend this for people who enjoy thrillers, unreliable narrators, and humor.
I don’t know, exactly. I do know that I rarely review books, and I feel like I need to get back to that.
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