How I talk about books online 📚

In today’s issue of Happy Dancing, Charlie Jane Anders writes about how to fix GoodReads to avoid people review-bombing books to lower their ratings.

I haven’t used GoodReads in a long time but Anders brings up a point that has me wanting to share how I write about books online. Anders shares an anecdote about losing a bunch of star ratings on songs in iTunes and then switching to a simple love/don’t love system, then says:

And I feel like with books, it’s pretty similar. Did you like this book or not? Would you recommend it to your friends? Would you look out for more books by this author in future? The important questions are all yes or no.

And this is how I tend to share books when I’m writing about them quickly.

If I loved a book, I’ll end my short post with “Highly recommend.” If I like it, I’ll just share that I finished it and maybe a brief description. If I don’t like it, I probably didn’t finish it, and I probably won’t post about it at all.

When I write a full review, I share a summary, what I loved, what I wanted more of, what I need to warn you about, and who should read the book. I only write this kind of review about books I would recommend.

Since 2007 I’ve had a policy of only publishing positive reviews on my website and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Finished reading: You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky 📚

Oh my goodness I love it. Matthew Prince starts out as a spoiled party boy but Janovsky slowly pulled the onion layers back until I loved him. And his love interest Hector is wonderful. Highly recommend.

A hand holding a book titled YOU'RE A MEAN ONE MATTHEW PRINCE by TIMOTHY JANOVSKY in front of a decorated Christmas tree and a lit fireplace.

📚 Listening to Patrick Stewart read A Christmas Carol and it’s just feels like having Jean-Luc Picard read it to you. 😍

Finished reading: In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae 📚

A lovely place-based friends-to-lovers second chance. As often happens, the third act breakup made me want to yell at the main character but the book had me happy-teary by the end.

A hand holding a book titled “In the Event of Love” by Courtney Kae in front of a colorful Christmas tree, with a rose and lights visible in the background. The book is a romantic novel set in a winter wonderland.

Finished reading: Eight Kisses by Mindy Klasky 📚

Eight Hanukkah romance stories. I read one each night. My favorites are the one with the Frisky Bean coffee shop and the one with empty nesters reconnecting.

A hand holding the book “Eight Kisses” in front of a window with a menorah on the sill, showcasing a cover featuring two people embracing and a lit menorah. The book is a collection of eight stories of Hanukkah romance by various authors.

📚🗨️

When people who don’t have fibromyalgia ask me how it feels, I tell them to imagine the last time they had a bad flu, then to picture going shopping, cooking, or exercising while feeling like that.

  • Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual

🔖📚 Read How To Get Started Reading Romance Novels by Stephanie Fallon (The Good Trade).

This is an excellent guide. Also? If you have unkind things to say about romance as a genre, please say them somewhere else. They’re not welcome in my replies.

Today’s stay poor slowly scheme: open a romance-only bookstore. 📚

📚 Today’s library haul. Catching up on Holigays22 and some other holiday reads, plus a YA biography of my hero Sarah Bernhardt - quand même!

A stack of holiday romance novels sitting on top of a biography of Sarah Bernhardt, next to a gingerbread house that's sitting on top of a holiday tin.

Finished reading: Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur 📚

The first holiday rom-com of a month where I hope to read many. Elle is an astrologer who dreams of a big love. Darcy is an actuary who’s terrified of having one. This book’s heat level is sensual, a couple explicit scenes. A lovely book but I wish the third act break-up had been resolved more quickly so I could’ve had more joyous reunion time.

The book Written in the Stars in front of a Christmas tree

Finished reading: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado 📚

A bunch of excellent and chilling stories. Horror and make it literary. Uncertainty that is maddening but then that’s kind of the point.

Want to read: Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found by Frances Larson 📚

Want to read: Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey 📚

Want to read: Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek 📚

Want to read: Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel by Loren Rhoads 📚

Want to read: Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom 📚

Want to read: The Victorian Book of the Dead by Chris Woodyard 📚

Want to read: A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death by Chris Woodyard 📚

Want to read: Good Grief: Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter by E.B. Bartels 📚

Want to read: The Anatomical Venus by Joanna Ebenstein 📚

Want to read: The Morbid Anatomy Anthology by Joanna Ebenstein 📚

Want to read: Cabarets of Death: Death, Dance and Dining in Early Twentieth-Century Paris by Mel Gordon 📚

🔖📚🎭 Read Why We Should Celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio (Literary Hub).

Finished reading: Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad) by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary 📚

A helpful framing of normal, baseline anxiety as a source of information that can spur us to creativity and action.

Finished reading: The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish 📚

A 17th Century bit of philosophical fantastical adventure.