Avi

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Huh?

thinker“This is one of those times where what I thought this book was going to be about would have been a bet­ter book than what it is actu­al­ly about.”

This is the open­ing sen­tence of an online blog review of a recent book. It encap­su­lates what is so often wrong about the world of blog review­ing. The review­er pre­sumes that what he/she thought about an unwrit­ten book would have been bet­ter than the book he/she actu­al­ly read. But, of course, the book the review­er thought about does not exist. The review­er is not say­ing, “I wrote a book about the same sub­ject, and mine is bet­ter.” The review­er is con­trast­ing a non-exis­tent book with a real book, and not only finds the real book want­i­ng, finds his/her thoughts to be a bet­ter book. One often hears the expres­sion, “Every­one is enti­tled to their own opin­ion.” But this is not opin­ion; it is self-indul­gent vanity. 

5 thoughts on “Huh?”

  1. Exact­ly. Though maybe the book/title/opening etc. gave this writer an “idea”…but as a review? Really.

    I just want­ed to take this moment to tell you I recent­ly read and adored Sophi­a’s War. I am a recent­ly retired ele­men­tary teacher (40 years! plus still teach­ing as a sub and tutor). I hope you have many more books like this. We need great his­tor­i­cal fic­tion. Since I end­ed my career with thir­teen years in 3rd grade, I was not always read­ing the kinds of work I read as a 25 year vet­er­an of 5th grade. Bra­vo on your fab­u­lous book. I wish I had had it to read as a child. I think we need sto­ry to help kids “get” the big­ger pic­ture of his­to­ry. Once they under­stand and care…well.…then they can go far­ther with the type of text in his­to­ry books, which I nev­er “loved” because there was just not enough great detail. (Dif­fer­ent strokes, dif­fer­ent folks, etc.) I must re-read Char­lotte Doyle as I adored that when I read it. 

    I am telling all the peo­ple I know to read Sophi­a’s War!!

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  2. Ah ha! Or, when a blog ends up not being what you THINK it’s going to be about. For exam­ple, I thought you were going to speak on how some­times you write a nov­el and it does­n’t look any­thing like what you had in your head before you cre­at­ed it… So then do you try to re-write to what you orig­i­nal­ly thought of, OR keep the new sto­ry that was actu­al­ly written?

    Reply
  3. or when you don’t pick up a book (Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle) because you think it’s a girl diary sto­ry and when you final­ly read it, it ends up keep­ing you riv­ot­ed for two days… and you even end up read­ing it in the bath­room while shav­ing before work…

    Reply

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