Reviews

I’ve added a reviews section to my website today. These are not intended to be unbiased reviews. Indeed, I aim for the opposite. My reviews will be exactly what I personally like/dislike about a book. If I pick something apart, it’s because I want to and not necessarily that I think it’s important to others. If you read my reviews, take them with a large, Aaron-sized grain of salt. Just because I like something doesn’t mean you will. Just because I hate something doesn’t mean you’ll hate it as well.

So I read a lot of books. I also forget a lot of books. It’s gotten bad enough that I’ve actually read several chapters of a book only to realize I’ve already read it. I get that far because sometimes I can’t tell if the story is actually that generic. So I hope that reviewing books will help me to better remember what I’ve read. It’ll also help me keep a list of the books I’ve read to refer back to if I need to.

Those are all good reason, but not the true reason I want to write reviews. As I’ve mentioned, I read a lot of books and I tend to quickly forget what I’ve read about three chapters into my next book. Reviewing the book forces me to sit back and really think about the book. There’s always things I like or dislike, prose I believe should be done differently, plot holes or clever things I might want to remember. I tend to forget all that as soon as I flip to the next page.

Reviewing the book is way for me to really think about it. In doing so, I hope to make my own writing better. To that effect, you may find me working through the ‘why’ of a failing or success of a mechanic, prose, style, etc. I may pick apart something in the book simply so I can learn more about it. If that’s not the kind of review you want to read, then by no means don’t.

I’ll try to review every book a finish from now on (and probably start reviewing some specific ones I’ve already read). Some reviews will be long, others probably not so much. I hope to have at least one insight into every book I review, but I am not trying to be comprehensive.

If you can remember that these are just my thoughts on a book and nothing more, then I think you may enjoy them. :)