Comments | gilee7: Reading List: First Half of 2011

gilee7

Reading List: First Half of 2011

Jul 31, 2011 01:57

1. The Lie by: Chad Kultgen--- Kultgen's debut novel, The Average American Male, is one of the funniest books I've read, so I was looking forward to reading his second effort. The Lie gets off to a good start, but eventually becomes far too repetitive and kind of dull, which is saying something considering how much sex and debauchery is in this ( Read more... )

Comments 2

2ndhandsunshine August 3 2011, 10:00:55 UTC

Impressive list. Sorry to hear some of them very good--same thing I've encountered with my last few books as well, unfortunately. I haven't even been keeping track. The last one I tried lost me two paragraphs in. I'm starting to feel a little jaded. Lol.

I notice you're more of a fan of plot and characters than of, uh, literary flourishes (is that an oxymoron?), or themes or authorial commentaries? Is that right? I've been thinking about this recently--about different writing styles and different reader styles, and how they don't necessarily define what's good or preclude what's bad, but that sometimes it's just an issue of incompatibility between the two sides.

But I feel kind of bad because I think my last review was a little harsh and I didn't mean for it to be. Or rather, I didn't mean for it to sound so dictatorial. Indeed, any critique must always be taken with a grain of salt, and the writer (to be a good writer) should probably know his style and his story and his goals for that story well enough to decide what given advice is ( ... )

gilee7 August 3 2011, 20:46:13 UTC

What 'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis? Your reviews have been extremely helpful. I actually just started writing an e-mail to you yesterday to thank you for the constructive criticism. The e-mail began to get a bit lengthy since I started discussing pop culture references and other aspects of the story, so I decided to save the draft and finish it later. But yeah, I've loved your reviews.

Never worry about being too harsh. The harsher the better, imo. (Although I don't think any of your reviews have even come close to being harsh.) I think if a reviewer does nothing but praise and compliment a story then that allows the writer to grow complacent. If I was a basketball or football player, I'd rather have a coach that was constantly screaming in my ear about the things I was doing wrong than a laid-back coach who just clapped his hands and was like, "Good job." I'm not one of those writers who's gonna sulk and get defensive if someone points out flaws in my story. I knew Smitten had a lot of things wrong with it, and your eyes have helped me ( ... )