Several of us were talking the other day about new authors,
or authors new to us in the last year or two, people whose work has surprised
and delighted us: Cecilia Grant, Ruthie Knox, Ros Clarke, others.
Cecilia Grant has a new novel coming out in June, I think.
Ruthie Knox has one I've read but not yet reviewed, and several more in the
pipeline. Ros Clarke has at least two novellas or short novels I haven't read
yet.
When these authors were first published, or first to us
anyway, we were taken back by the quality of their work. The voice, the
skillful use of language, the dialog that not only amused or touched but also advanced the
plot. The characters at once new but somehow familiar, people we recognize not
so much from romance novels, but from our own lives. Little bits of humor.
Little twists on tropes.
And we reviewed accordingly, breathlessly, doing everything
but jumping up and down and pointing: "Do you see that?!!"
I sat down last night to write a review of Ms. Knox's Along Came Trouble, which will be
published on March 11. (I scored an e-ARC and did a little happy dance when
they sent it to me but plan to buy my own copy to support the author and her
sales.) It's a good book. It's a darned good book. It's got everything in it
that I've come to expect from Ms. Knox for plotting, characterization, and that
elusive thing we call voice. I even liked the difficult heroine of the piece. I
found myself hesitating over some of the language in the review, and the grade.
If this were the first book of Ms. Knox's that I'd read, I'd
be all over the place with the fangirl stuff and the !!! and pointing out this
and that. My review, however, reads more like "Another really good read
from the reliable Ms. Knox." Which sounds like faint praise,
doesn't it. Just because this new book did not surprise me the way Ride With Me did does not make it a
lesser book. But it feels a little lesser, at least in part because I expect
her to amaze me every.single.time. Which isn't fair. I'm going to scrap the review, read the book a second time, and start over fresh.
I'm not experienced as a reviewer (does this post make my
head look fat?) and I don't really know how to deal with this. There are only
so many rabbits in the author's hat. Eventually they run out of rabbits and
start telling us good stories, reliably good stories, but there's no longer the
element of surprise.
What do you folks think? Has this come up for you or have
you found Ms. Evanovich's 19th Stephanie Plum novel to be just as exciting and fresh as
you did the first?
I find that once authors get established that their writing deteriorates. Some has to do with the publishers shortening up word counts and dumbing down language - JAK, JD Robb, NR, and the list goes on and on and... - but much IMO comes from having to meet deadlines.
ReplyDeleteAs noted by a number of reviewers Kristen Ashley's latest is a lot shorter than her previous books. The filler that people have come to enjoy was not in that book. Truly, I believe it is for 2 reasons... 1 - she now has a deadline and 2 - no longer self publishes.
So, I think you should simply write "another good story" or "she's continuing to write at a standard of her initial books".
I have yet to meet an author who can keep writing as they did in the beginning. Some I continue to read b/c that have that "comfort" feel. Most are library or no longer interested in reading anymore authors after about 6 books on average.
I hear you. I am the most unfaithful fan of series novels. I think you have a good point: the first novel or two were probably written over a period of years, carefully crafted, and once the poor author gets published - bang! - two a year minimum. They become, sometimes, a product to be marketed. Sad.
DeleteThere was a sign in my old office that said, "You can have it fast or you can have it right. You choose."
I think it depends on what made the book amazing in the first place. If an author plays with stereotypes or tropes in more or less the same way in every book, then the surprise factor can't be sustained. All authors have styles, and the more you read of them the more you see which idiosyncracies and style factors repeat across the work. That's not a problem if the a-ha moments are ones you enjoy reading whether they're surprising or not. But if the freshness is more because something is a new twist than because it's a substantive departure from the "traditional," then a sense of let-down is inevitable.
ReplyDeleteI have a few authors whose work I consistently enjoy and recommend. When I review their books I think readers know I'm likely to be positive, but I try to explain what makes a given book worth reading. I try to ignore who wrote the book and think about what make the book itself work for me.
Hi, Sunita! That's a good tip, and I think I can do that. Why did this particular book work - or not.
DeleteThank you!
I hear you. I think, as usual, the answer is "just be honest." You don't necessarily have to compare the book to the author's previous work or comment on what feels like it's missing (unless you want to.) Not every book is going to be fabulous, and you get used to your favorite writers' bags of tricks.
ReplyDeleteNow, see, that makes good sense to me. I've been looking at the problem as if it's a "compare, contrast, and discuss," when it's really just "discuss."
DeleteI agree with Sunita and Willaful. I'd add that I tend to grade based on how I feel, both when I'm reading a book and when I close the cover. That give me the grade and then I backtrack to the *why* of the grade (and try and make sure they match!). Sarah from Smart Bitches Trashy Books refers to the "happy book noise". It's that exclamation one makes at the end of a book where it has just been SO good.
ReplyDeleteI think "I loved it because ..... This author makes me reliably happy" is a perfectly acceptable basis for review and as a review reader, this would make me happy. There have been times when I've said that my expectation are so high from a particular author because of my past experience that I wonder if I'm setting them up to fail - but then they blow me away again. Or times I've said something like "even an 'average' book from this author is better than the average book".
Hope that helps :)
I'm laughing, Kaetrin, because I often work backwards from the grade, but I often find that I've written myself into a different grade, higher or more often lower. I'll start with a B, because it was a pretty good read, well, except for the pronoun problem and the OCR errors, and a plot thread that simply disappeared at the 3/4 mark, and the next thing I know, the poor book is a C. I often wish I'd never started with the letter grades.
DeleteVery helpful, yes, thank you!
I think that some authors degenerate into sameness more quickly than others. Stephanie Laurens is a classic example. I loved the first book of hers I read. But it doesn't take long to realise that all her books are basically the same. Whereas an author like, say, Sarah Morgan feels fresh to me every time. She's very good at writing characters who are individuals and she mixes up traditional tropes in unexpected ways. I definitely think it's an important part of a review to say whether or not a book is as good as you expect from a particular author, and whether or not it's becoming stale and repetitive.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I love you.
Ugh - Stephanie Laurens. I'd read a few of her books because people kept telling me how great her writing is, and it's often pretty good, or parts of it are pretty good. I made the mistake a year or so ago of reading a trilogy of her books and realized that I could not tell any of the characters apart, not physically, not by behavior or by speech habits.
DeleteI follow, sort of, the In Death series, and it's gotten to the point that I'm a little bit tense until the author refers to Eve's "long eyes." Once she's said it, she won't say it again in that novel, and I can relax.
Good advice, thank you!
And I love you, too. :-)
What ARE long eyes anyway?
DeleteI read an interview with La Nora some years back and that exact question came up. She said that it means an eye that is tilted up at the outer corner, vaguely Nordic, I guess. I suppose it goes with the deer-colored hair.
DeleteLOL! To me, when I see long, I see vertically long and vertically long eyes would be just weird!
DeleteExactly - aliens!
DeleteWhen I was reading the In Death series, and I came in at about volume 20 or so, so there was a major glom going for awhile, I kept a list of NR's verbal tics and continuity problems. I seem to have discarded it, which is a pity because it was hilarious.
Interesting question - I quite often explain a little bit about why I picked up the books I review, which is a good time to talk about how an author always makes me happy, how I loved their first book (or didn't) and to link back to any previous reviews where I may have been more excited or surprised by new-to-me factors, which builds the author-love-buzz without impinging on the specific-book-quality thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a job which included writing book reviews - then if I was struck by the sameness of a book (another totally worthwhile read from *yawn*) I'd focus on what the person reading my review needed to know - to whit, should they buy This Book Right Here? Under what circumstances? If they love Other Book? If they've never read Other Book?
On personal blogs, I think it doesn't matter so much - it's your opinion about books you've read, so that's what you should go with. And it is helpful - I just picked up Bitch in a Bonnet after reading your review. Thank you for that - it's one I wouldn't have found and a nice addition to my Austen phase.
Oh, now that's a good idea: why did the reviewer select the book. That gets it all out in the open right away. Great tip!
DeleteI'm glad you found Bitch in a Bonnet. "Bitch" is still not used a great deal among folks my age in this area. My husband would sooner bite his tongue into three pieces than call a woman a bitch. So the title caught my eye in that way, and then the writer was such a character. I'm glad you found it!
I've been experiencing the same disappointment lately, I suspect with the same authors. I'm assuming it has to do with the publishing process: once you have a success, you get a contract to do more of the same, on a tight schedule. I'm glad these authors are getting recognition and making some money, but I wish they could have more time and freedom to develop as writers.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree. I once jokingly offered to clean Cecilia Grant's house and cook for the family and pick up whatever else her half of the chores are if she would only stay at her desk and work. But I came to my senses.
DeleteI don't write for a living but I do write a three-times-a-week column in the house organ where I work, and after doing this for years, lady, I am dry! About 1500 words three times a week and I'm dry. So I can't imagine what it must be like to have to crank out fiction - by contract - day after day. And nowadays they're pushed to interact with readers, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, bloghops. Exhausting. Probably it's no wonder after a few books there's a washing-out of creativity.
When I am rich, I am totally going to pay someone to do all my housework for me. And the rest. I would be so much more productive, I just know it!
DeleteHa! I've always fantasized about having a cook. I've always been certain that I could be a size five if only I had a cook. And just think of the volunteer work a person could do if only they had some help around the house.
DeleteWe're looking at senior housing, probably will move sometime in the next year or so (sooner I hope) and they all offer housekeeping services. Some of my friends are like, "Euww, you'd let someone else change your sheets and clean out the refrigerator and scrub the shower?" Oh, yeah, in a heartbeat!
I really appreciated this post, because it's a tricky problem. It's one I sometimes confront in my work as a teacher, too. If a student's first assignment in a course is a really strong A, do I expect that they must keep improving to keep getting an A? Or if they keep hitting the same standard, do they keep getting an A?
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to genre fiction, especially romance, I think part of the problem is that authors are encouraged to write a LOT and to build a recognizable "brand." Both of those can lead rather quickly to the feeling (and indeed reality) that new books are pale, tired copies of early ones. I think it can be hard to tell the difference between "this book is just as good but I personally did not have that feeling of amazed Oh Brave New World discovery because I have read the author before" and "this book lacks some of the energy or emotion or whatever of earlier work and feels like the author is just going through familiar motions" (or, of course, "this particular book didn't work as well for me for some reason, but the next one was great again"). And as everyone else said, all you can really do is be as honest as you can about your response.
Hi, Liz! I hadn't thought of it that way, how interesting. The point of the class being to learn, to grow, to expand the way a person looks at things, yes, where do you go when that first essay is already brilliant?
DeleteWhat do you do when they hand in a dud after three or four brilliant essays?
I don't know how authors do it, with all the social media things they're supposed to participate in. The very few writers I've known IRL haven't been excessively social critters, and this kind of forced interaction - on top of marketing-marketing-marketing production demands - must be a nightmare.
I keep thinking of Emily Dickinson.
This is one of the things I love about the Romance community. There's always help when you ask for it, and nobody is snippy about it. The generosity continues to amaze me. Thank you, Liz, and thank you, everyone. I can't claim that my cranial-rectal inversion has been cured, but at least I can see the way out!
I have yet to read RwM and I'll be really interested to see whether it feels fresh or stale to me. Because I'm currently reading ACT and it's not doing a lot for me. And I don't think the problem is that I'm used to Knox, I think the problem is that this just isn't as fresh a book. Not that it's bad, mind you, but just kind of there.
ReplyDeleteHi, Willa! I have exactly enough energy for one reply today. I really struggled with my review for ACT. I kept trying to see it as if I'd never read RwM (which did seem very fresh to me even though I disliked the ending). Parts of ACT were very good: I liked the pairing of the security specialist with an attorney, I liked that the security specialist taught the attorney a few things on the fine art of negotiation. I liked that for all her quirks, she became his safe place, and he became hers, not because either one needed to be rescued as such, they were both doing fine, but because we all need a safe place. There was a lot to like. I'm concerned that the author's new contract is forcing her to write faster than she can, and if that's happening, it's a darned shame. That, or she's being over-edited, which is a concern I have with another favorite author.
ReplyDeleteI'm honored that you used your one reply on me. Now get back to bed!
ReplyDelete