Reviews, a mandatory post?
We all know, book blogging is way more than blogs being solely review-based. There’s been countless of discussions about that; and if you’re like me, book blogs that are more “diverse” in term of contents is way more interesting for us.
Beside reviews; one can have countless ideas upon conversation posts, bookish tags or memes, or even jump into the bullet journal wagon, just to name a few.
However, When we first joined in, i’m sure many of us have had the original thought that a book blogger must have a specific “line of actions”;
- Publish Book reviews often
- Read ALL THE BOOKS or new releases
- know everything about said books
Soon enough, we discover that this is not the case at. all. and it’s so much more than that. I gave up upon producing as much reviews as other bloggers might be able to pretty soon; because you guys know that I don’t read that quick nor as many books a month as them — 4 books a month is my current best.
Nothing says in the book (ahah ! see what I did there?) that we shall review all and every book that we read either! Nor in which format we shall write them; in bullet points, long or short, DNFs, on GR only, crossposed on both GR & blog.. we are the only one to write our own and to decide which one we pick.
Some bloggers seems to be better to cut from the expectations of what we should do and just do as they feel bests for them – reviews of DNFs or not, write alot of informations in them or not, give a star rating or remove that completely, etc.
I’m sadly not one of them who can shake such things as easily. I’ve posted a few DNFs reviews on here before, even attempted a few bilingual reviews.. as of which i’ve ended up deciding to let go because it was getting hectic. As of which, I don’t think i’m gonna post reviews of books solely produced in French anymore (Quebec French nor France French) — because well.. first I need to translate my thoughts onto english for the review, and second, most of my readers can’t read said book as they don’t understand French.. so there’s no real point for all that trouble.
Since I’ve started my blog, I’ve made an habit of reviewing 98%* of the books that i’ve finished reading on here — except one, which was “Such a Good Girl“; because while the read itself was enjoyable in a way, upon finishing it I just thought it wasn’t as good in the end, and well.. I just had no words to even review it.
Thus, taking that decision to not share them on my blog seems wierd.. I’m still gonna review it – but just on the French Goodread page. I finally got into the follow up book of my favorite Quebec serie that got published 2 years ago (sitting on my shelves that long, because honestly I was kinda scared..) and I stumbled onto that decision because I realized that even if I were to review it on the blog, even of the whole serie as a whole – though I stopped my rereading halfway through, the chance that someone would know or could read said serie is very slim. While the goodread page seems more of a helpful place as most users who would check that page would’ve either read the others, or would be interested.
What’s your basics in terms of reviews on your blog?
Do you have as much trouble as me to change things on that front?
Oh sweet, sweet, sweet reviews how you stressed me out so. I didn’t join the blogging community to write reviews weirdly enough. I joined to talk about books and other topics, which is pretty obvious with the amount of discussion posts I’ve written.
I’ve tried writing reviews on the blog but it just wasn’t working so last year I made the choice to remove them completely. I still have reviews on goodreads though and I try and write a review on goodreads as soon as I finish the book. Then I can just move onto the next read.
Same- I feel like reviews are just « fill-in » posts for the month sometimes… but i’m not quite ready to remove them completely right now ahaha
Reviews are a tricky one for me: sometimes I have a lot to say and sometimes I don’t. I usually have more to say about the books I don’t like because I start paying attention to what I don’t like, whereas when I like or love a book I don’t think about it too much. I like to review books I love but it definitely more work. I never really review books that only get 3 stars because I don’t have much of an opinion (unless it’s a review book or arc) and I never review books that I read in german really! So I’m very impressed that you can review so many of the books you read!
That makes sense! I guess I could be the opposite? More easy for me to point out what I loved and my go-to that what just.. fell off? Most of the time I don’t necessarey even know what’s wrong xD more than anything else is just a little thing that isn’t my type (exemple; a tad more historical than I would’ve thought or something)
Thank you! Xx
I loved this post! I am not a very good book blogger – I never keep up with new releases or authors or debut authors. I also rarely review books on my blog… I am trying, but writing a blog post about just one book is not my style and I stopped doing that since it felt more like a chore rather than a fun time.
Also, I blog about everything – with a focus on what I am enjoying, and more often than not, what I enjoy are books which is my connection to the book blogging community. But I am definitely not a good book blogger :)).
Have a lovely day!
Honestly, I’m the exact same. I have NO IDEA what book comes out when, or what is a debut novel/author, and you should know I also post bujo/gaming/blogging/just whatever aswell at this point ahaha
I kind of look up to you in a way to have seen how you don’t like that and shove it off – as i’ve definately found reviews are a kind of “place holder” posts for me? and yet I still struggle to completely let it go xd
even after all these years im sitll bouncing between writing the perfect review. its so hard and each book is always so different.
I agree.. I’ve switched up the way i’m writing them atleast twice — and i’m not completely sure they’re all been the same with this format either xD
I’ve started just reviewing on GR, and then deciding what books I want to post to my blog. I know I get overwhelmed when people post 5 times a week, and that is x100 for people I follow. No way I can read all of that! So I took that into consideration on my own blog, and decided to pull back how much I blog! I feel that for me, it is now much more manageable!
Ah yes for sure! I only post 3times a week, and even then I struggle sometimes so I can’t fanthom doing 5times a week 😂 but then again I don’t finish books as much – i’m on my third one this month (so two finished), if you can do 2-3 a week than yeah totally understandable!
I’ll try reviewing some Gr only and see how it goes..
It’s definitely not the case all the time anymore and some book bloggers don’t post reviews at all! I have to admit that I am a lover of book reviews – I love to read them and I love to write them, so I post them a lot and read those posts a lot. But in no way does that mean you HAVE to have them. Everyone blogs in their own ways 😀
Although I know that, the « pressure » is hard to desolve 🙈 I admire the bloggers who decide reviews aren’t for them and just don’t post them anymore! I’m not quite there yet ahaha
That’s great for you! I know a couple are in the same boat and love them, too.
This is a really good discussion! I think a lot of the times it is seen as because you’re a book blogger, you have to post reviews. And the more books you read, the more reviews you have to write and all that. It gets to be a lot of stress a lot of the time.
I have started to change my reviews up now and then. Or at least I have one review that’s different than others written up and I hope I can do similar ones in the future – they’re fun to do, to have a change in your reviews. I think it’s good to change your format of reviews up now and then.
There’s still a lot of reviews I need to write up and publish so hopefully I can get that done in the next few months. Of course they just keep piling up 😂
Oh yeah, definately! No matter the content of the post, it’s always good to spice things up a little bit!
Yep, they does eh? 😂 im lucky in the sens that I can only manage about three books per month, which I start my review about halfway and I edit it as I go — so it is definately easier on me than if I were to read even just the double of that xd