Review Style

I've been giving some thought as to how I want to approach reviews, knowing that so many readers are already doing a wonderful job in critiquing books. In perusing various websites for books, it amazes me how thorough some reviewers are and the amount of time they dedicate to ensuring that other readers know what they are getting into. While I would love to aspire to that level in a sense, I'm also aware that I won't have time to engage with books in such depth. Thus, my reviews will likely be much shorter as a result.

This means that I probably won't get into the following:

• Any counting or tracking of potentially offensive material à la Plugged In reviews. I do care about profanity but I won't list the words out and rack up how many instances it is used throughout the book. Since I'm mostly reviewing Christian books, I might express surprise at God's name being used in vain or point to how curse words were used to convey a particular emotion, but I won't get too detailed.
• Trigger warnings. These aren't something I personally read before starting a book—though it definitely has merit—so I may or may not mention any content triggers explicitly. This world has a lot of trouble, and I am grateful to read Christian stories that don't ignore these realities. That being said, if triggers will keep a reader from enjoying a book, Goodreads is definitely a good option for finding out more.
  
• Specific third or even second act details. Having worked in libraries in the past, I know what it's like to come across spoilers and to have someone basically give the whole plot away (even if some plots may be predictable, I think we enjoy the journey that authors take us on). If my reviews come across a little vague, it's because I don't want to outline exactly how an author resolves a situation, but if it's so vague that it's unhelpful, please let me know.
  
• Scriptural references, unless absolutely critical to the story or central to an overarching theme. If there are biblical truths that are well examined, I won't shy away from mentioning it, but I won't necessarily provide a list of all the verses I come across.
• Technical aspects of the book. Since almost all books are listed on publishers' websites and purchasing sites, I won't relay information like page count or publication date as it's fairly easy to find these details.
• Too many tropes. I'm undecided on how I feel about tropes, which is fine with me. I don't need to have an opinion on everything, so if I'm on the fence about tropes in the first place, I'll only add them sparingly. I recognize that they help readers quickly identify if the book contains a theme they enjoy, but too many tropes and after a while, I feel like it's a movie trailer that tells you every single element that you'll possibly encounter in the film (music? lights? car chases? guitars? ponies? We have it all!).
  

What I do hope to provide is a:

• Book Synopsis: As short a description as I can find, usually from Amazon. This is so that readers don't have to jump between web pages to get the gist of the story. It also means that I can spend more time enjoying books and providing my thoughts without having to rewrite an already well-crafted summary (I love writing but writing things for marketing purposes takes a lot more out of me). Rewriting other people's sentences also makes me think of book reports 😛
• Book Thoughts: Mostly observations or impressions. This is fairly straightforward, so I won't say too much here.
• Book Summary: A more emoji-filled section so that I can track the format that I read the book in, along with a quick rating. For the sake of simplicity on this blog, I'll avoid half stars, although I do rate books that way on LibraryThing. I'll also give a simple recommendation of a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I haven't come across too many books that I would give a thumbs down to, but I suppose they exist out there.

Some reviewers have shared what their rating system means to them, so I'll do the same:

• ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - This book is so memorable that its content will stay with me for a long time and I will mentally reference it again.
  
• ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - This was a great read and worth my time (spoiler alert: a lot of books fall into this category for me).
  
• ⭐⭐⭐ - There were things that could have been better but it's not a book I feel strongly about one way or the other.
  
• ⭐⭐ - This is not a book I would recommend to others if they have limited time, nor is it a book I would want to keep.
  
• ⭐ or no stars - Either this book has so many theological issues that I can't consider it a Christian book, or it's the most disappointing thing I've come across. I hope that books in this category stay low!

My rationale in keeping reviews as simple as possible is so that I can have some semblance of longevity on here. I tend to over-complicate matters, so even in the task of coming up with reviews, my analytical brain needed to know what I would and would not do. Having these parameters is freeing, and I hope will allow me to cover more ground as I start. With that in mind, allons-y!