After each book, I get panicky. I don't love the reviews. I don't like going through all that, and you would think that, after almost 40 years of writing, I'd have got the hang of it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I don't read reviews because by then it's too late - whatever anyone says, the book won't change. It is written.
Writing is exhilarating, but reading reviews is not. I've been really devastated by 'good' reviews because they misunderstand the project of the book. It can be strangely galvanising to get a 'bad' one.
Most books reviews aren't very well-written. They tend to be more about the reviewer than the book.
I work really hard at these books, and when colleagues write nasty reviews of them, I take it very personally.
My greatest fear is disappointing the reader, so each book has to be better than the one before.
I was aware that there is an expectation that writers inevitably falter at this stage, that they fail to live up to the promise of their first successful book, that the next book never pleases the way the prior one did. It simply increased my sense of being challenged.
I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.
I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.
The things I keep going back to, rereading, maybe they say more about me as a reader than about the books. Love in the Time of Cholera, Pale Fire.
I'm such a fangirl when it comes to other writers. I read 250 books a year, and I'm always talking up books by other authors.
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