One of the first books I finished this year was Spare by Prince Harry. I gave it a glowing review because I enjoyed the hell out of it, but after I posted about it on Instagram, an old college friend who had also read it reached out to let me know he disagreed wholeheartedly. No big deal, obviously. Everyone responds to everything differently, but as other people told me they would pick up the book based on my recommendation, I started to get nervous.
Would they love it? Would they hate it? Would they be “eh” about it? Scariest of all, would they ever trust me as a book recommender again?
I enjoy suggesting books to people and do so at every opportunity. I especially like making book recs that fit a specific occasion. For example, once, someone mentioned to me that a friend had recently found out about being adopted. Immediately, I suggested All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung and The Mistress’ Daughter by A.M. Homes, both memoirs about being an adoptee. After a friend went through a divorce, I gave him After Francesco by Brian Malloy, a perspective-shifting exploration of bitterness and grief.
For a while, a few years ago, I even made extra money creating “If you liked A, then try B” recommendations for the library support service NoveList. These 150-word blurbs were meant to appear at the bottom of library catalog searches for specific books. For example . . .
Looking up The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee netted a suggestion to read Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.
Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade? Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya.
The Year I Flew Away by Marie Arnold? Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes.
My Year Abroad by Chang-Rae Lee? The Leavers by Lisa Ko. Or maybe Black Buck by Mateo Askariapour. Or even On Beauty by Zadie Smith.
I could keep going. Just like I could have done that job forever. Unfortunately, it paid pennies, which is why I eventually gave it up. There was also the fact that I could never make “negative” suggestions. “If you were underwhelmed by The Art of Fielding, The Brothers K is a much better novel about baseball and includes the only description of a strike zone anyone will ever need to read.” That blurb would not have flown regardless of how absolutely true it is.
Book recommendations are a bit like curation in that making good ones takes knowledge of a subject, understanding of what will make an impact and a sense of taste. It also helps to know something about the potential reader. When you make blanket recommendations, things can break down. That’s what happened with my review of Spare.
I stand by my own response to the book, but Prince Harry is a complicated figure. Not everyone approaches his experiences—or those of any “royal,” for that matter—the same way. Add the fact that his marriage to a biracial American got a less than welcoming response in his home country, and you have a recipe for something sure to inspire a wide range of opinions. It’s also fair to say that memoirs are tricky to recommend for lots of other reasons. Namely, writing them requires toeing a line between introspection and navel-gazing that few can manage.1
In any case, I really liked Spare. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. Do you still trust me?
The truth is that all readers come to find that there are some sources that make more reliable recommendations than others. One of the benefits of the democratization of information and the ability for anyone to share theirs views widely that came with the onset of the internet is that book reviewing became something anyone could do. Recommending books is no longer just the purview of a handful of (mostly white) critics at major legacy publications and hasn’t been for a while. To borrow from our current president, this is a big fucking deal.
To wit, recently, Denver author Kali Fajardo-Anstine was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction. In a social media post acknowledging this magnificent achievement,2 she also acknowledged how much it stung to miss out on marquee reviews. Here’s her full quote:
“I am stunned and filled with honor at the news that I am a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow. There were many times that I felt discouraged as a writer and as though my work wasn’t acknowledged. It was extremely hard on me when Woman of Light wasn’t reviewed by major newspapers (one paper in particular). I felt like I had failed; that I had let my community down. It took months for me to accept that’s not why I write. I write for my ancestors, myself and my community. I am so deeply honored the Guggenheim Foundation acknowledged my work. I will always do my best to make the path more accessible for those coming behind me.”
National tastemakers like the New York Times Review of Books (no doubt, the referenced “one in particular”) are much more diverse now than they used to be—both in terms of what gets reviewed and who does the reviewing. Nevertheless, its editors still make choices that affect whether books catch on. Thankfully, Fajardo-Anstine didn’t need them, and that’s in no small part thanks to social media serving as playing-field-leveling platforms for book discussions. Authors no longer need the Times for a book to go—dare I say it?—viral. Obviously, it helps. New York Times Notable Book and best-seller stickers are still placed on books because they drive sales. But the point is that they are no longer the only things that do.
The downside to reviews being everywhere, of course, is that reviews really are everywhere. Everyone reviews everything, and sometimes for no good reason. Review bombing is the practice of masses of readers/moviegoers/what-have-you organizing to intentionally pile on bad reviews on a piece of art, not based on its merits, but because they want to see it fail. Why do this? Lots of reasons, most of them sexist and racist. The world, alas, is full of assholes, and unfortunately, the internet gives them a platform too. That said, I’ll take the opportunity to decide who to trust—that is, to decide which reviews to take seriously and which to ignore—over the alternative.
So, reader, who do we trust? Do we go by the average star rating on Goodreads or Amazon or The Storygraph? Do we dare scroll down to the actual comments when the No. 1 rule of the internet is to never read the comments? Do we just read what Reese or Oprah or our reader friends tell us to?
Honestly, I think the answer is yes to all. I try to be discerning about which books I choose and mostly stick to what I know I will like, but I am also deeply interested in what others think is good. Book recommendations from people I trust push me try genres and narratives that challenge me. It’s rare that I end up with an enthusiastically recommended dud, which is why I still welcome recommendations. But it happens, and when it does, I feel reassured. It lets me know that I’m not just staring at words on a page when I read. I am, in fact, affected by those words and still able to form opinions about them. When I don’t like a book, I remember that reading is more than just a pastime, it’s an exercise.
So if I have ever recommended something to you that you didn’t like. Well, you’re welcome.
Inability to do so well hasn’t stopped many from trying.
Well deserved, IMHO.