On Comments and Commenting, Part 2

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This has been on my mind ever since Mother Reader asked me (along with Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect, Mary Lee at A Year of Reading, and Jennifer at BiblioFile) to be on a panel for the KidlitCon, and then asked “How can I get people to comment on my blog? Or link to my blog? Or notice I have a blog?” Honestly, the first thing that came to mind was commenting.

You want people to know you’re out here in the bloggy world? You want people to read what you write? Comment on blogs. All sorts of blogs. Follow links from your favorite blogs and comment on those blogs. Follow the links of the people who comment on your blogs and comment there. The only way people will know you’re out there is if you tell them you are. And the best way to tell them you’re out there is by comment love.

And I admit: I love comments. I feel bad when a post of mine doesn’t get any — it looks so neglected and ignored without any. And, to be really honest, I do wonder if what I wrote wasn’t “good” enough or “interesting” enough to merit any comments. Then I get all self-conscious: am I just shouting into the void? Is there anyone out there reading what I’m writing?

Yet, I find that I’m really bad at leaving comments. It’s not that I’m not reading what you write: I am (mostly). It’s just that I have — we all do — a limited amount of time in the day, and dividing it up between running a family, reading books, blogging about those books, and reading other’s blogs, the thing that gets pushed to the bottom every time is reading other’s blogs. I could spend all day wading through my feed reader, commenting on every blog, and I’m sure it’d make me hugely popular (well, I’m actually NOT sure about that) and I’d get a ton of comments (then again, maybe not). But, I don’t have that kind of time, and that’s not where my priorities lie.

And so to bring these two blogging poles into balance, I have developed a battle plan: comment on the posts and the blogs that aren’t getting much love. I find that if a post has more than 20 comments, or a blog that I read consistently gets 30, 60, 100 comments, I don’t feel a need or a desire to comment. What I probably wanted to say was probably already said by someone else (I hardly ever read through comments when they get over 25, anyway). It’s at that point that I don’t feel like I’m really contributing to the conversation, instead becoming just another yay– or nay-sayer in the crowd.

But on the smaller blogs and smaller posts, I feel I can make some sort of difference. Add that one comment that will make the post author’s day. (Because, believe me, I know how it feels.) Even if it’s just a “good review!” comment.

Which brings me to “good review” comments: do leave them. I know that my reviews get read, but I feel bad for the ones that don’t get any comment love. I don’t know why — like somehow my reviews are my babies, and I feel bad that they’re being rejected because no one liked it enough to say “Hey, great review.” Or even, “That sounds terrible/interesting/unique/stupid.”

Commenting is one way to get involved in the wider community — and leaving comments will most likely make someone else’s day. But, we do realize: we all have a limited amount of time, and not every post will get a comment from everyone. It’s just nice when it happens.

So, leave a comment: do you live for comments, or are you more like Liz: you know there are readers out there, and it really doesn’t matter if they comment?

Ice

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by Sarah Beth Durst
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Once upon a time, the North Wind said to the Polar Bear King, ‘Steal me a daughter, and when she grows, she will be your bride.'”
Review copy sent to me by the publisher at the author’s request.

Cassie has spent her life knowing two things: polar bears and ice. It’s because she grew up with her father at a remote research station in northern Alaska. There was one other thing she was told: her mother was the daughter of the North Wind, and she was currently residing in the troll castle in exchange for defying the North Wind and having a daughter (who she promised would marry the Polar Bear King). Cassie figured it was just a fancy way for her dad and grandmother to tell her that her mother had died.

Until, on her 18th birthday, she discovers that the story was really true: she encounters Bear, who comes to take her to his castle and marry her.

Thus begins Sarah Beth Durst’s latest book, a modern adaptation of the fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon. There have been other adaptations of this tale, but Durst takes it in a couple of new and intriguing directions. First, by setting it in modern day, it makes the fairy tale end of it seem more surreal. There aren’t supposed to be talking bears or magic in our modern, scientific world. Durst makes this work by introducing a vaguely religious aspect to the book: Bear and his kind are munasqri: beings who have powers in order to capture souls of the dying and deliver souls to the born of the creatures they oversee. It’s an intriguing concept: one that allows for magic without making things overly fairytale-ish.

The other thing I found interesting was that the marriage between the main character and the bear took place near the beginning of the book, rather than being the reward for finding the bear. The basic elements of the tale were there, except that Cassie is married — and pregnant — for most of the book. It added something more to the book; it’s almost more believable that Cassie would go to the ends of the earth and beyond for her husband rather than someone she just discovered she loved (though there’s some of that, too), especially because she’s carrying their baby. As a mother and a wife that particularly touched me. I’m not sure how much teens would find it interesting — M really enjoyed reading the book, though — but I did appreciate it for the picture of a loving, healthy relationship.

Durst opts for a more quiet tone than in her previous two books. There is no supreme adventure, a race against evil — though interestingly enough, evil takes a similar form in this one as it did in both of her other books. No, it’s a quest, a journey in the traditional sense: Cassie is searching for her husband, questing to prove to herself that the impossible can be done, learning that she not only can do what she thought she could — both physically and emotionally — and overcoming all in the end.

An excellent addition to this fairy tale’s adaptations.

The Summer I Turned Pretty

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by Jenny Han
ages: 12+
First sentence: “We’d been driving for about seven thousand years.”

Belly lives for summers. Summers are when she is most alive, most at home, most in her element. Summers are when magic happens. Summers spent at the beach house, with her mother, older brother Steven, her mother’s best friend Susannah and her two boys, Conrad and Jeremiah. They are Belly’s world every summer.

She’s been the tag-along little sister for most of her life, but this summer, the summer she turns 16, it’s different. This summer, for the first time, people — boys — notice that she’s pretty. It’s also the summer that everything changes, because whether Belly likes it or not, nothing can ever stay the same.

Han has perfectly captured two things: 1) a hesitancy to grow up — Belly wants to be older, wants to be included with the boys, and yet she can’t quite seem to let the past, the way things were and have always been go quite yet; and 2) the need, desire, want of every girl to have at least one boy (preferably the boy they secretly adore) to acknowledge that they are pretty. Sure, there are other things going on here — divorce, angst, cancer — but really, the book all boils down to one girl, one summer, and her conflicting desires to change and yet stay the same.

It tugs at the heart strings, but not in a manipulative way. Perhaps, though, it’s a better nostalgia book for adults or older teens. One has to have gone through these emotions at some point in their life (and what girl doesn’t?) in order to truly “get” the book. Aside from that, though: it’s a beautiful portrait of a girl and the summer that changed everything for her.

An Argument for Bias: An Open Letter to the FTC

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To Richard Cleland, Federal Trade Commission:

As I’m sure you’re aware, a lot of book bloggers have reacted strongly to the inclusion of book blogging in the “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” which have recently been released by the FTC. They, like me, are wondering how it will apply to the work we do. We are also somewhat frustrated at your apparent lack of understanding regarding how book reviewing and book blogging works. It is these latter concerns — with which I mostly agree — that has prompted this letter.

As I understand the guides, the FTC is concerned about the consumer’s perceptions of individual reviews of “products”. I can understand this concern, especially when it comes to utilitarian products.

When I am reading “reviews” (though as one book blogger, Mother Reader, observed, “how does how one ‘review’ a bookshelf or swingset or tungsten rings?”) of clothing, shoes, strollers, computers, cameras, or cars, I want to know how well they work. I want to know which brand or item is going to give me the most for my money. It’s reasonable that such things are “reviewed” on the basis of their form and function, because their value comes from how well they perform those functions. Reviews of those products need to be clear about any bias which might have come into the review, because being biased or dishonest about the performance of a product will diminish the value of those products in the hands of consumers. In short, it makes sense to regulate and oversee reviews of these kinds of commercial products: they have a definite utilitarian value which can be easily compared.

But books are different. Sure, they can be perceived as a product: they are physical in ways that, say, movies are not. There are publishers and authors who benefit from their production and sale. However, this is not what book reviewers are reviewing. You will not read a review of a book that says, in essence: “This book is about 6 by 8 inches, with 288 pages. There’s a nice smell about it, and the pages turn excellently. It also makes a great doorstop.” There is usually no (or very little) mention of the physical or utilitarian aspect of the actual book. There is also almost never any mention of which “brand” of book — be it Bloomsbury, or LittleBrown, or HarperCollins — is better than the other.

Rather, what we are reviewing are the ideas, the outpourings of a person’s imagination, in the book’s story. And for that, we often want bias. When it comes to books — or movies, music or art — biases (of some sorts anyway) can be helpful. It can mean that you’ve read a lot of other books (some of which you got for free, some of which you bought on your own, some of which you checked out from the local library), that you’re familiar with the author, that you understand what the publisher is trying to accomplish. This will enable you to be more sympathetic (and thus give potential readers a chance to learn something new) or more critical (and thus warn potential readers away when a book is really just more of this or more of that, and not as good).

Ultimately, a book review involves a question of taste. We book reviewers are reacting to the book in ways that a stroller reviewer doesn’t react to a stroller. Sure, you can look at the “construction” of a book — Are all the words spelled right? Does the sentence structure make sense? Is it cleverly or beautifully assembled? — but, ultimately, what a review really boils down to is the reviewer’s taste in stories. And taste cannot be regulated or influenced by free products.

Ask yourself what the consumers of book reviews–which include book bloggers themselves–are looking for. As readers of books, we actively search out not only multiple opinions on each and every book (if we’re so inclined), and we look for opinions of people whose taste (which we have determined over time) closely matches our own. It doesn’t matter if the review they find is in The Washington Post, the Wichita Eagle, Bookslut, or on an individual’s blog. Generally speaking, all readers want to know is whether they will have a positive experience with the story the book contains. So, we find people with like-tastes and read and come to trust (or, in some cases, distrust) their reviews, searching out (or avoiding) the books they recommend. It doesn’t matter if they got the book for free from Random House, or through a blog book tour, or because an author emailed them out of the blue; what matters is how they reacted to the story, and how we as consumers of book reviews are able to measure their taste against ours. As commenter Nicole said on this post in response to a comment about the bias inherent in blogs, “There is no tradition of ‘unbiased’ blogs, and any reader would know, going into a blog, that it is just a biased person giving an opinion. Sounds like the consumer has all the knowledge he needs.”

Although the print media has a reputation for being “unbiased” in their reviews, in all actuality they are not any more unbiased than individual bloggers. In my role as book editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, I receive books — many unsolicited — from publishers for review in the journal. I consciously seek out reviewers who are knowledgeable about and are involved in the issues surrounding the topic of any given book, which increases the likelihood of their giving a “biased” review. This happens in ways both “positive”–in that they see the author has agreed with the reviewer’s own or work or has added something to the discussion which the reviewer thinks to be valuable–and “negative”–when the reviewer sees the author approaching a topic or area of study in a manner they think is ignorant, irresponsible, or counter-productive. I do not think this bias hurts the journal, and I do not think getting a free book biases a reviewer in favor of the book, whether that book comes from me, as an editor, or directly from the publisher. In fact, I think that if we actively discourage people from reviewing — or receiving — books they have a vested interest in, there would be far fewer reviews — and far worse ones.

After all this, I do know that it’s not really bias itself which you’re attempting to regulate. In terms of the regulations, it doesn’t matter if a particular blogger likes John Grisham or John Green. What does matter is if that blogger got the books directly from Grisham’s or Green’s publishers (or agents or publicists) instead of walking to the bookstore and buying a copy. But I’m here to say 1) that the variety of biases available throughout the book blogger world makes for a better and broader marketplace for those books (to say nothing of the “marketplace of ideas” which that variety contributes to), and 2) that the practice of obtaining getting free books needn’t affect that variety — on the contrary, it probably expands it. The reviewer who likes John Green will like his work whether or not the book was free. Same goes for the reviewer who dislikes his work. Because, unlike cameras or cars or strollers, books don’t have a set physical value. Sure, a book may sell for $19.95, and the publisher, author, and agent each get a cut. But, honestly, that’s not the real value of a book.

The real value to all readers of books is the ideas, and the experience of reading stories which contain those ideas. I’d like to think that the consumers of our blogs — our fellow readers — understand that concept. It’s not the possession of the physical book that ultimately determines what I think of it, it’s the reading experience. And, honestly, can one put a monetary value on or regulate an experience?

Sincerely,
Melissa Fox

Library Loot #39

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Hi, my name’s Melissa.

(Hi, Melissa.)

I’m here because I’m a book addict. I love them. I love the feel of them in my hands, the weight, the smell. But I really love the stories. I can’t get enough of the stories. And when I’m wandering around the bookstore or the library or the book blogs, I hear them calling to me: “Pick me! Read me!”

(We understand, Melissa. We really do.)

I try to resist, I really do. Especially since I have a stack of books on my nightstand that have been waiting, so very patiently, for their turn to be read. But, sometimes the urge to pick up a book, to hold the book becomes so powerful that *breaks down crying* I have to give in.

(*patting on the back* *passing tissues*)

*sniffling* At least it was only checking books at the library and not buying them. Right?

(Right. Just think of all the money you saved.)

I’m glad I’m among friends.

For A/K:
The Teeny Tiny Woman, retold by Harriet Ziefert/Illus. by Laura Rader
Clyde Monster, by Robert L. Crowe/Illus. by Kay Chorao
Biscuit Visits the Big City, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli/Illus by Pat Schores**
Boogie Knights, by Lisa Wheeler/Illus. by Mark Siegel**
The Monster Trap, by Dean Morrissey
Too Many Toys, by David Shannon**
A Penguin Story, by Antoinette Portis
Betsy B. Little, by Anne McEvoy/Illus. by Jacqueline Rogers
Princess Pig, by Eileen Spinelli/Illus. by Tim Bowers
The Negro Speaks of Rivers, by Langston Hughes/Illus. by E. B. Lewis

For C:
There wasn’t anything that caught my eye for her. And since she’s *determined* to wade through “grumpy Harry”, I’m encouraging that.

For M:
Catalyst, by Laurie Halse Anderson*
Evil Genius, by Catherine Jinks
The Awakening, by Kelley Armstrong

For me:
Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body, by Courtney E. Martin
Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer Choldenko
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking, and Other Natural Disasters, by Lenore Look
Envy: A Luxe Novel, by Anna Godbersen (I know: I caved.)
Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home, by Kim Sunee

The roundup is either at Reading Adventures or A Striped Armchair. For full disclosure (aka, FTC love): the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I’ll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it’s SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I’m not going to stop doing it.

*Ones that M eventually read.
**Picture books we really liked.

A Civil Contract

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by Georgette Heyer
ages: adult
First sentence: “The library at Fontley Priory, like most of the principal apartments in the sprawling building, looked to the south-east, commanding a prospect of informal gardens and a plantation of poplars, which acted as a wind-break and screened from view the monotony of the fen beyond.”

Actually, that first sentence up there is pretty indicative of the whole novel. And part of the reason I bailed halfway through.

See, I wanted to like this. For many reasons: I really liked the last Georgette Heyer, this is the one we’ve put out for my face-to-face book group in a couple of months, it’s the favorite of a really good friend of mine. But… it’s long winded, schmaltzy, and not nearly silly or light-hearted enough.

The basic plot is decent: Adam Deveril is a captain in the army when he learns of his father’s, Viscount Lyndon, death. Upon returning home, he also learns that his father was overly extravagant, and piled up so many debts that Adam is going to be forced to sell not only his horses and London home, but the family seat, also, in order to just pay off his debts and provide for his mother and sisters. However, that will leave him penniless, so he can’t marry the woman he loves: Julia. Instead, in order to save his ancestral seat, he contracts with a wealthy upstart businessman to marry his daughter, Jenny, in exchange for the money to keep his home. Jenny is practical about this: she knows Adam doesn’t love her and even though she feels affection for him, she doesn’t ever really expect to have him feel it back.

And that was the first half of the book. Sure, I get that Jenny is long-suffering and patient and loving, and will venture to say that Adam will soon learn to value her qualities (beauty is not among them) more than he valued Julia’s beauty and singing voice. (They always do, you know. Men.) And I’m sure there will be a soaring conclusion where Adam and Jenny if not fall happily into each others’ bosoms, then at the very least, marriage will not be so odious and they will be happily practical together. Which is all fine and good.

But I couldn’t wade through the exc!mation marks, and the pages and pages of clothing descriptions and bad dialogue to get there. I wanted light-hearted humor, I wanted a dash of adventure, I wanted silliness, dang it. And I didn’t get any of those.

So, Georgette Heyer, all your books are not equal (which is forgivable). I’ll just have to try another one.

Nothing But Ghosts

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by Beth Kephart
ages: 12+
First sentence: “There are the things that have been and the things that haven’t quite happened yet.”

There are some things that stand out about certain authors. A sense of humor, fabulous world building, great characters. In the case of Beth Kephart, it’s the language that grabs you. Haunting and beautiful in its simplicity, it’s what keeps you turning pages, what you remember and savor when you close the book.

Danny got what he was hoping for, which was rain, though this rain is like bright white sheets of fire, a genuine storm.

Katie D’Amore’s mother died last year. She and her father have been making do, slowly getting back to normal. Healing is hard, true, but life — whether fortunately or unfortunately — goes on. Then, the summer after her mom died, Katie gets a job on the grounds crew on the estate of the reclusive Miss Martine. It’s only after she catches her boss, Old Olsen, sifting through the dirt of the assigned summer project — a foundation for a second gazebo — that she starts to suspect something is up. And perhaps, in figuring out Miss Martine she’ll be able to figure out how to live without her own mother.

It’s pretty out here. The moon is less than it was last night, and there are thin shreddy clouds floating around in front of the stars, leaving blanks in the constellations. The airwaves are busy with crickets and cicadas, and Sammy Mack, bless his monkey heart, is oddly, fabulously quiet.

It’s a mystery, but not an edge-of-your toes compelling mystery. Like everything else in the book, it’s reflective and poetic. Katie does do her legwork, and in the process learns a few things about herself. It’s a ghost story, but not a scary, supernatural one. And yes, there is a boy so it does qualify as a romance, but it’s not a swoon-worthy, heart fluttery one. The book is many things, but the real reason to pick up this book (and possibly any Beth Kephart book, since I had a very similar reaction to The House of Dance), is to enjoy her effortlessly descriptive, beautifully evocative language.

Past the drive, the road falls down so fast it feels like bungee jumping. A scrap of air gets caught between me and my backpack, tilts me back for half a second, then is whooshed away, and I’m flying forward, both hands wrapped around the handlebars and the bangs beneath my cap blowing wild across my face.

Which, in some ways, is the best reason of all.

On Commentors and Commenting

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I actually thought I’d have a lovely Sunday Salon post musing about the role of comments in the blog world, but it really didn’t work out that way today. So… just the award part. Perhaps I’ll get around to my thoughts on comments later.

The lovely Melissa at One Librarian’s Book reviews gave me a lovely award — The Dragon’s Loyalty Award — for the loyal fan/commenter, whether the recipient is a fellow blogger or just a someone who follows and comments regularly.

First off, thanks, Melissa!

Here are the rules:

* If you have a blog, post it on your blog with a link back to the site who gave it to you.

* Leave them a comment on their site, email, etc. to let them know.

* If you don’t have a blog but have a website, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or other type account, post there with a link back.

* Pass this on to 3-10 loyal fans.

Hmm… who to pass it on to? (Always hard.)

Amanda at The Zen Leaf
Corinne at The Book Nest
Kailana at The Written World

I could pass it along to more people — I do manage to get a few comments on most posts — but those three are pretty much comment on pretty much every post. Thank you, ladies, for taking time out of your days and passing on the comment love. You are awesome!

Mission Control, This is Apollo

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by Anderw Chaikin/paintings by Alan Bean
ages: 8-12
First sentence: “Until 1961, space travel was something that only dreamers and science fiction writers thought about seriously.”

This is an absolutely gorgeous book. Oversized, glossy pages, beautiful paintings by former astronaut Alan Bean — it’s a book that I want to own just so I can page through over and over again, looking at it all.

And the text supports the beauty of the book. Chronicling the Apollo moon missions (Apollo One, and then Seven through Fourteen), Chaikin details the work, the amazement, the passion that the astronauts had for exploring the moon. It’s not a book that’s done in great detail — it is for younger kids after all — but there are some interesting facts in it. Instead of delving into the details of the missions, Chaikin chose to highlight the enthusiasm for space and the moon, the drive to get men there, and the dangerous job they had to do. There were also pages throughout about the practical side of space travel — from going to the bathroom to adjusting to zero G, to the explanation of why astronauts were held in quarantine — fascinating tidbits that made this surreal experience (especially for those of us who weren’t alive when this was happening) more real.

It’s a fabulous book, one that hopefully will inspire people to study space, to want to return to the moon. Or, at the very least, you’ll react like me, and want to watch movies and drag the family to NASA in Houston, just to get another glimpse at this remarkable time in history.

The Key to the Golden Firebird

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by Maureen Johnson
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Chome on,” Palmer said, her words dulled from numb-tongue syndrome caused by the Icee she was slurping.”

A review about a Maureen Johnson book shouldn’t be that hard. This is the last one that she’s written that I hadn’t read, and honestly, there really isn’t that much to say that hasn’t already been said before.

(For proof, check out: Girl at Sea, Suite Scarlett, The Bermudez Triangle, Let it Snow, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, and Devilish. Did I miss one?)

The plot of this one is slightly darker than her other books (she usually doesn’t deal with death): May Gold’s dad died of a heart attack a year ago, and she, her two sisters (one older — Brooks — and one younger — Palmer) and mother have been trying to scrape by. The Golden Firebird in question is her dad’s 1967 Pontiac, which has basically been sitting in the garage gathering dust since the day he died. May just turned 16, and the big event in her life is getting a driver’s license. Except that since her mom works nights at the hospital and May is at school and works during the day, there’s no one to teach her. Enter next-door neighbor and nemesis, Pete.

Turns out that dealing with loss is a lot more difficult than any of the Gold sisters would have thought. They’re all dealing with it in different (yet all equally miserable) ways: Brooks comes home every night completely smashed and quits the softball team. May throws herself into being responsible and working hard at both her job and school. Palmer retreats into herself and her softball game but finds it difficult to sleep at nights. It’s not until everything comes crashing around them during the summer that they find a way to deal with their loss and move on.

As I said before, there’s not much to say about this book that hasn’t already been said about Maureen Johnson. It’s not as swoon-worthy as some of her other books, but there’s still much about it that I love in her writing. It’s funny, it’s full of characters you can’t help but love. It’s full of wacky adventures, misunderstandings, and times when you just want to hang people by their toenails for being stupid. It’s not my favorite of her books (that would be Suite Scarlett or Girl at Sea), but it’s definitely worth reading.