I hope that it’s not too late to wish you all a very Happy New Year! I am going to use my first guest post of this year to give an opinion on the highly charged topic of book reviews and reviewers. The relationship between writers and reviewers has always been a strained one and in the M/M genre I believe that many of the arguments that occur, do so when the reviewer becomes a critic. Those two things are not the same and I believe that the best reviewers are able to stand back from the work they are reading and give an unbiased report on it. A critic on the other had often sets themselves as an arbiter of literary taste and style and so delivers a wholly biased report or even an attack on the author simply because the story did not fit their personal expectations.

The great Irish Playwright Brendan Behan once said that:

“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.”

Now that is one of the more extreme views from someone who clearly had an uneasy relationship with the critics of his work. I should say here that genuine literary criticism is a whole academic subject of it’s own which defines criticism as: the art or practice of judging and commenting on the qualities and character of literary works. This is where the ideals of criticism, of review and of reading seem to part company. An author writes and should be true to their ‘voice’ this will inevitably not be to every readers taste. Readers are entitled to read whatever they want but if as a reviewer you read a book which is not to your taste then you need to become a third person, an observer. As such you can see both points of view and you will understand that whilst this particular text is not to your liking, it may indeed appeal to a great many others. A book review is defined as a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analysed based on content, style, and merit. All of this can be done without bringing personal bias to bear. We all have the right to hold and to share our opinions. None of us has the right to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn’t read.

As the author Phillip Pullman puts it:

“No-one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. If they open it and read it, they don’t have to like it.”

T. J. Masters is published by Dreamspinner Press