« Responding to Amazon Reviews | Main | Did I mention my toaster broke? »

May 17, 2005

Reviews and reviewers!

Alesia, still recovering from the 2nd grade talent show

I ADORE reviewers! Especially, to be honest, the ones who say nice things about me!! They are all brilliant and possessed of unmitigated good taste. A good friend of mine, Julie Leto (who has a kickass book coming out next month!), calls nasty reviewers “booger-eating morons,” and I have to admit I admire the simplicity . . .

But I’ve never had any of those. In fact, I just received my first review for NICE GIRLS FINISH FIRST, and it ROCKS!! Lydia Funneman of Writers Unlimited said “Nice Girls Finish First is the perfect story for you to toss into your beach bag and enjoy on a lazy summer day.”

(By the way, in the spirit of not being a moron myself, I applauded my head off last night at the talent show . . . )

But, of course, there are those anonymous amazon reviews – or sometimes, unfortunately, NOT so anonymous . . .

Yes, one of my very first reviews for my very first novel, AMERICAN IDLE, was posted on amazon by my husband’s cousin. The subject line was: “Shaky first novel (but good)”

Now. Seriously. SHAKY??? As the FIRST WORD in the SUBJECT LINE??? He went on to identify himself as Navy Guy’s cousin. So, I’m immediately envisioning any random reader’s reaction:

Random Reader: Dude!! She sucks so bad even her FAMILY can’t say anything nice about her!!!

In the spirit of the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression, all of which I’m a fanatic about, naturally I called him immediately.

Me: Dude! How are you? Enough about you, already. What the HECK were you thinking???

Him: But I gave you 4 stars!

Me: SHAKY??? Why would somebody want to buy a book that somebody in my (husband’s, let’s be clear here) family calls SHAKY?? And I checked out your reviews. (He’s a 20+ guy). You’ve ever only read or reviewed comics in your ENTIRE LIFE and you pick my first book to decide to review CHICK LIT for the first time??? Then you say the ROMANCE wasn’t convincing??? Um, HELLO??? Which one of us probably knows more about ROMANCE from a CHICK’S perspective???

Him: I can take the shaky part down.

Me: Deep, deep sighing.

So I love reviewers. Family members . . . yeah. We just won’t go there.
Hugs,
Alesia
p.s. CAVEAT to any in-laws who may read this blog: Just kidding, of course!! I adore you all! :)

Posted by Alesia at 9:08 AM