So first, anyone who hasn't should read this brilliant blog post by Shannon Hale about book evaluation v. self evaluation.

(Hale's blog is one of my favorites about books, and that particular post brilliantly articulates a bunch of things I've been trying to think about, but I kept finding my brain unequal to the task, and it's such a relief when someone says things you've been trying to think, which is also one of the things I enjoy so much about Hale's books.)

I've written many hundreds of book reviews for Booklist Magazine, and I've also reviewed books elsewhere. I stand by most of those reviews, but Hale's blog post made me think about the times I've been dead wrong.

All reviewers are sometimes wrong, of course--but in the spirit of Hale's post, I thought I'd post a couple re-evaluations.


1. Hale points out in her blog post that contemporary reviewers often place way too much emphasis on whether they "like" a book--as if the only thing a book can do is be likable. (One often hears, for instance, that Catcher in the Rye is a bad book because Holden isn't likable. Teenagers may have a hard time liking Holden, because the things that annoy other people about us are the things that annoy us about other people, but this isn't an indication that the book is bad; it is an indication that the book is good.) Roger Ebert taught me that the question is not whether the thing was fun; the question is whether the thing accomplished what it wanted to accomplish, and whether that thing was worth accomplishing.

Anyway, I have totally made this mistake in my reviewing career. The example that stands out most is Chuck Palahniuk. I don't think Chuck Palahniuk's books are finally very good, but I totally missed what is good (or at least seductive) about them, because I find his stories (except for Fight Club and to an extent Invisible Monsters) so disgustingly gratuitous. I was so overwhelmed with not-liking-it that I did not give his books their due. Instead, I should have acknowledged that they accomplish the thing they set out to accomplish, although I still believe that thing is not worth accomplishing.

2. Sometimes, you react negatively to something for stupid personal reasons that you don't have enough self-awareness to recognize. There are many examples of this in my life, but the one that stands out is TTYL by Lauren Myracle. I reviewed that book tepidly when it came out, because I felt like it was gimmicky and didn't really sound like kids IMing.

But in fact it did sound like kids IMing, which we know because a gajillion young people love that book and its sequels. And in fact, so do I--years later, I still find myself thinking about TTYL and the girls in it--the ways drama comes from within and without, and the weird mix of fragility and strength in teen friendships.

The reason I felt like it didn't sound like actual teenagers IMing is because it didn't sound like me IMing, and I was not yet accustomed to the idea that my way of experiencing the internet might be dated. I fancied myself such an expert in online communication that I felt I could be very high and mighty about emoticons.

Okay. That was embarrassing, but also kinda cathartic. Anyone else want to share book re-evaluations?

Here's to the transformative role books can play in our lives--even (perhaps especially) the ones we initially think we don't like.





(Except The Fountainhead. It just sucks.)