As a person that prides herself on my ability to provide honest reviews I try my hardest to write reviews based not just on my personal reaction to the book but the workings of a book as a whole. What I mean is that I can not like a book personally and still give it a 4 stars because the book was written well as far of the storyline flow, the development of the characters and the structure of the writing (grammar, spelling, sentence usage). It's rare that I am at a lost on how to rate a book because there are basic guidelines that I follow when writing my reviews. There really are 5 key points (which relates to 5 stars) that I look for when reviewing and having a low score in one area does not automatically put a book in the low rating category.
****QUESTION WHEN READING AND RECOMMENDING BOOKS WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR ****
- Storyline Flow: This is one of the most important things to me because I feel like no one is going to want to read a book that doesn't have a clear storyline. This is why I have a hard time with books that have lots of flashbacks because I get confused as to what's going on when the story jumps all over the place.
- Characters: Did I like the characters? Did I found that there was depth to the characters? Was there enough characters to make the story seem realistic? Was there a clear definition of the characters.
- Connectable: This is really the only truly personal thing that I rate a book on because this is really about whether I was able to connect with a story. There are books that pull me right in, will have me laughing, crying or ready to fight. There are also books that I read and feel nothing for the characters.
- Presentation: This one just means that the story was polished. I get it you can have the best editor in the world and a mistake can be missed but sometimes it's clear that the author didn't take the time to have someone professional look at their work. If it's a misspelled/misplaced word that's one thing but there is only so much work I want to do when reading a book. I don't want to spend my time trying to figure out what the author was trying to say.
- Expectation vs reality: This one means that the way the author promoted the book is the way that the book is actually portrayed. For instance I have seen books that are marketed as romance when it reality they are erotic reads with no real storyline just lots of sex. A romance should have a happy ever after or at least a happy in the end. I have seen books marketed as paranormal and other than the fact that they call the main character a shifter, demon or vampire there are zero other connections to the genre. My number one pet peeve is when a book is marketed as a book when in reality it's a cliffhanger and therefore in my opinion not book 1 but part 2.
****QUESTION WHEN READING AND RECOMMENDING BOOKS WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR ****