Flip-Flop

I review for two different PW editors. One editor sends me mass market releases, the other hardcover or trade fiction, generally targeted for women. Some time ago I realized that as a general rule, I like more of the mass market release than not...and dislike more of the fiction releases than I like. That flipped during the past week. I liked the last book I reviewed for my fiction editor. Unfortunately, the review I turned in earlier today to my mass market editor was for a gruelingly bad read.

My mass market editor sent out the book with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it turnaround time (I volunteered); I'm still trying to decide whether the fact that I had to read and review it so quickly was akin to ripping off a Band-Aid in order to lessen the pain. The book arrived Friday morning and was due today, which would have been fine had I read it, as planned, on Saturday. Instead, because I'd already begun reading and knew it was bad from the get-go, I procrastinated and worked on setting up the Dallas Coffee Party blog and twitter feed, and wasted even more time by writing the first entry for the blog, instead. Which meant that I'd only read half the book by this morning.

And then, after I'd finished reading early today, I got caught up in a story I read on a Coffee Party friend's Facebook page, and decided it needed to form the basis of Corporate Fascism?, which I wrote and posted on the other blog around noon.

Which still left plenty of time to write my review, edit it, whittle it down to the requisite word count, and send it in so that by the time I left for work tonight, I could write this blog entry.

Even though my mass market editor keeps an extensive database so as to try and match books well to reviewers, everyone who reads realizes that it's impossible to succeed every time. And just when I'd considered writing to my fiction editor about the fact that I don't seem to like most of the books he sends me to review, I realized I liked the previous two.

And now, in a complete break from reviewing, I'm going to read a book I borrowed from James at the bookstore based on his recommendation: Jonathan Tropper's How to Talk to a Widower. It's going to be nice to read purely for enjoyment for a change.

Flip-Flop