AKA how we're viewed as reviewers and how we should be reviewing. Apparently.
If you take a look through my reviews, especially those with fewer bite ratings, you'll be hard-pressed to say that I sugarcoat my words when I give a less-than-stellar review of a book. But apparently enough YA bloggers are being more nice than honest in their reviews that it's gotten the attention of The Huffington Post.
Now I know we've had this discussion before on various blogs, some people give honest reviews of everything, some only post good reviews because they only want to promote books they like instead of downing a book they don't, and so on. But it's never been brought down to gender. THP did just that, claiming that it's mostly women yielding to other women in their reviews because of some underlying gender coddling, probably on a subconscious level. While the article does state the fact that most YA book bloggers are female, and most YA authors are female, the "results" don't seem to skew with the numbers. Personally, I don't think there are enough males in the blogging or YA author world to get a more accurate read as to whether these assumptions are even close to being right.
Yes, some reviewers do feel guilty for giving a review book a bad review. Some feel somewhat obligated to a publisher to give a good review when they're sent an ARC. That's fine. But I don't like the assumption being made that people are giving sugary reviews because of the parts between their legs. I don't like how other factors aren't being taken into account, how it's been stripped down wholly to gender bias.
Mostly what I see in this article is the push for YA bloggers to be more like professional reviewers when they break down a book in review. But you know what? We're not. Many more people than what's insinuated in that article do state what they like and don't like with a book. Maybe it's not backed up by in-text references or the nuances of writing aren't discussed as reasons for it not being good. So what? It doesn't mean the review's been hampered. It just means the person doesn't have the knowledge to "properly" break down a book, or flat out just doesn't want to turn a review into a critique. It has nothing to do with vaginas. Maybe if reviews were read a little closer, people would see everything they're looking for, just not executed the way they want it to be.
We all have our own reviewing style. I don't think female authors should be graded on a curve and I want to punch commenters in the throat when they say things like, "Well, that author did their best, let's see you try and write a book," and while it makes me laugh, I'm not the one with eyes so clouded that I feel the need to pander to the author. As an author, they should be able to handle constructive, honest criticism. They don't need fans coming to their defense and fans shouldn't come to their defense if the review is legitimate and isn't a total bash.
I think what this article author missed is that this community is filled with a lot of young people, a lot of people that aren't English majors, a lot of people that are just people that love to read and want to share their opinions. The internet will always be filled with anonymous pandering assholes but I think for most bloggers, that doesn't affect them. They just continue reviewing.
We're not held to NYT standards, and we shouldn't be. We're just people that sign up for free Blogger blogs so we can share our opinions about books. It's rather insulting to try and force a review style on people and say you're pandering if you don't conform. We're not in this to advance our reviewing careers to major newspapers. Stop trying to force stylistic preferences on us and just let us review. We all do it differently and that's how it's going to stay. Read the reviews a little closer and you'll see they're not all sunshine and farts.
The Last Thing on My Calendar
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