My favorite book review site

I was talking to somebody the other night about book reviews, about how I don’t really pay attention to the big well-known establishment reviewers, and so where to go to get good book reviews. That reminded me I needed to link to these guys. Elitist Book Reviews is by far my favorite place to go for reviews, and I’ll explain why.

http://elitistbookreviews.blogspot.com/

Now it isn’t because I’ve gotten generally positive reviews there either, because I’ve gotten fairly good reviews on most of the bigger review spots, (except for the Publisher’s Weekly one for Hard Magic, because sheesh, talk about missing the point!) it is more because I personally tend to agree with their ratings. Now I don’t always agree, and there are a few writers they like much more than I do, and a few the other way, but overall I find they’re usually pretty spot on.  

More importantly, they usually “get” a book, and understand what type of book the author was shooting for.  So they tend to judge the book in context.

For example, if I write something that is a glorified B-movie pulp action adventure, and a review place pans it for not having enough nuance and subtlety to get on the Oprah Book Club… The reviewer didn’t get it.  On the other hand, if an author wrote a sensitive romantic character study, and the reviewer hated it because there weren’t enough explosions and laser sword battles, the reviewer didn’t get it.  EBR usually gets it, and judges accordingly based on whether it is entertaining or not.

Plus they’re snarky. I enjoy the snark factor. I’m not big on dry, boring language.

I did an interview with Steve the Bookstore Guy (one of the people that runs the place) a while ago. I found out that he writes a review a week, and didn’t miss a week last year. That’s 52 reviews, most of which are 1,000-2,000 words long. That’s not even close to how many books he actually read either, just the ones he reviewed. And he’s not the only reviewer on the site, so they usually have several new reviews up each week.

There are a few other places that I get reviews from. Bookreporter.com has some writers that I like. I also enjoy The Sci-Fi Guys book review. http://scifiguysbookreview.blogspot.com/  Other than that, I enjoy reviews on blogs that I read, but those tend to be sporadic. (though I love when you guys out there post reviews about my stuff, because Word of Mouth rocks).   

So check EBR out. They tend to be more slanted toward fantasy, but they do get into horror, sci-fi, and thrillers as well. And yes, I’ve made sure that they’ll be sent ARCs of all my stuff in the future.

EDIT: of course, I post this, go on Facebook and end up talking to somebody else that does good book reivews that I forgot. http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com/  Ain’t that how it goes? :p

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5 thoughts on “My favorite book review site”

  1. Larry, thanks for the linkage! We all work our butts off over at EBR. A lot of work goes into a review site/blog. But hey, we get free books, get to interview great authors, and make fun of Dan Brown & Terry Goodkind. All worth it.

    –Steve

  2. They are very good at what they do, and I appreciate that they tell you content-wise what kind of book it is. Suppose they are reviewing a book where every other page a person gets eviscerated, well, they’ll tell you about all the gore/sex/whativer and then tell you if it was done well (ambiguity intended). What I’m trying to get across is, you may not agree with their picks based upon the content of the stories, but they are up front about what that content is. If they really like a story, they will tell you why, and if that why isn’t something you agree with, well, then you know not to get the book.

    Plus, they are generally a great bunch of reviewers. You can tell that they love what they do, which is refreshing. It isn’t just a day job. In fact, I’m not sure they’re even paid…

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