How Often To Review Books

Last updated on 26 July 2017

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I’ve been blogging for nearly 10 years now. What! I literally just realised how long that is.

I started my first blog back in 2008, and after a few incarnations, This Splendid Shambles emerged and has become part of my life in such a big way.

One of the things I love about blogging is sharing my thoughts and feelings around the books I read. Blogging has given me this fantastic platform to share the books I love (and those I don’t), and to hopefully help you to find your next favourite novel. It’s given me an opportunity to be a part of Blogger’s Bookshelf, and also team up with Hachette Publishing NZ (*waves*) for book reviews.

But one of the things that people always ask me is ‘do you review every book you read?’. And the short answer? Yes.

There are only a few books that I have read since I started reviewing books that I haven’t actually written a review for.

“Even the ones you didn’t like?”

Even the books I didn’t like.

Yes, sometimes it’s very difficult to write about a book you didn’t like, but equally, sometimes it’s hard to write about a book you did really enjoy. Often I find it’s the books that I do love that are the hardest to write about. Occasionally I can’t put my finger on what it is about the book that I love. Sometimes I love it ‘just because’. It becomes hard to put sentences together after ‘just because’ becomes my answer.

Those books that I haven’t really enjoyed, or didn’t grip me like others, it’s those books that I find myself typing out sentence after sentence, point after point. But even among my ‘I didn’t like this book’ paragraphs, I always try to point out the good things, the things that I did actually enjoy about the book. I might liken it to other books in a similar genre, or I might share some of the main themes in the story, so that even if you began the review thinking ‘she gave it 2 stars – I won’t read the book’, by the end you might actually give the book a go.

Even if the book wasn’t for me, doesn’t mean it won’t be for you.

Such is the world of bibliophiles.

To everyone who asks me if I review every book, I say yes. Even the ones I don’t really enjoy.

What about you? Do you review books? Every book?