Double Standards: Erasing the Past and Looking Forward

I’ve made a decision. I will no longer be posting book reviews here or on Goodreads. Yes, I know they’re popular in the bookish community for a variety of reasons, but they’ve never quite sat right with me. Who am I to judge someone else’s work? How do I know what they went through to get to the end result? I could be judging them too harshly or not critically enough—it’s impossible for me to know. I refuse to be an arm chair critic.

Furthermore, when my book is released, I will not be reading most of the feedback concerning my own work. I will be reading only what I need to read. That means I will not be checking Goodreads—in fact I may delete Goodreads altogether. I do not deny that Goodreads has its purpose—it’s great for keeping tracking of how many books you’ve read and when you read them—but I’ve come to disagree with the somewhat snobbish and sometimes downright mean culture of the review side of the site.

So with that being said, I will not being offering my opinion on any more books unless expressly asked by an author and/or publisher. I do read a lot of indie books, and I am a member of a few publishing house PR influencer groups. So if either of those happen to funnel books my way I will make it clear that the review is coming with the permission of the publisher/author.