Young Writers Society

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Ahoy there, Hannah! I haven't seen you around much lately.

I'm afraid I really don't know anything about writing book reviews, so I may spew nothing but useless nonsense, but I hope I'll be able to help you out here at least little bit. That deadline is soon, ain't it? I'll do my best to help.

First off, I have to say that your opening line drew me in. I was a little thrown off by the sedcond-person-ness of it, because that seemed strangely informal, but I really liked what you were saying. And I liked the idea of opening with something like that rather than something like "the novel starts with... (etc.)" Nice opener. It drew me in. I also liked the ending. There, once again, you were giving your opinion on the book, and I found that intriguing to read. So the beginning and ending are good. The middle is what I'm unsure about.

I have to ask what this assignment was. Were you supposed to write your impressions of the book or were you supposed to summarize the book? The beginning and end seem to be focused on showing your interpretation of the novel, but the middle is more about the exact plot specifics. Were you assigned to do either of these?

I get the feeling that it was a rather abstract book. If that is true, and if you do have the choice of how to go about writing the review, then I think you might want to make your review a little bit more overall. Or at least give us a better overall understanding of the book before going into the details. For instance:

The narrative follows two threads of a man's consciousness in first person. The opening picks up with the naked, nearly-blind Finch who is distraught after a storm tears across his patch of land. Worse, as he stumbles about, he finds that a couple of hikers have wandered close to the cave he lives in.
In the next chapter, the narrative takes us back to see Finch sit at his desk where he's nearly forgotten by everyone around him. He sits in his corner and runs several made-up blogs in the voices of various kinds of people. He sometimes manages to plug the product his company is selling, but more often than not continues building relationships for these imaginary bloggers and their not imaginary readers. He is no longer approached any of the co-workers that surround him and unsure whether they even remember his name, until a new manager calls him in to fire him.

I found this so bogged-down with details that it took me a few readings to understand what you were saying. Granted, my mental capacity is a little frazzled right now, but I think it would be a little less confusing if you gave an overall picture of how the novel is formatted (POVs, etc.) before diving into specific plot details. Maybe if this was longer, then there would be more room for specifics, but as it is it feels like you're jamming them in to space that would be better occupied by more general observations.

I have a feeling I'm not really making any sense in this review, but I guess my main suggestion is that you not try to replicate the book. I don't know what your assignment was, but personally I'd rather hear what you thought of the overall structure/message than what the individual characters and their situations were like. Of course, you'll need some specifics in order to ground it, but personally I'd prefer a more overall description of the novel. But that is completely up to you. I think you just need to decide which path you want to take with this (details/plot oriented vs. overall) and stick to it a little more.

I hope this helps somewhat! Let me know if you post something I actually know enough about to review. ^_~ And, of course, let me know if you have any questions or anything.

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