Red Phone Box was released on Saturday. Just three days ago. During pre-release we got all four and five star reviews. Even Kirkus appeared to like the book. Yesterday, we got our first 'meh' review -- three stars.
I've seen some writers go berserk over reviews where the reviewer clearly didn't understand the book. That was never going to be me. Here's why. I've spent a lot of time reading reviews written about other people's books. I've always noticed that even the best books will get some one and two star reviews. Nothing is for everyone.
Red Phone Box doesn't follow normal novel conventions. It's also isn't exactly an anthology. It does have a lot of characters and plotlines that crisscross and weave together. For some people this was always going to be a flaw. I just happen to love things like that. I wanted it to be unusual, and it is.
So what happened when I read the review? I was a little disappointed. But it wasn't all bad. I smiled at the nice things that were said and nodded at the critical stuff, my brain immediately trying to figure out how to avoid the problems mentioned when we write the second novel.
All in all, after I took a few minutes to digest it, I was actually kind of pleased with it. Now I'm steeling myself for some worse ones. I mean, Neuromancer has some one and two star reviews and the average on Goodreads is 3.81 (with over 100,000 reviews). It's going to happen. It has to.
Someone sent me this quote: 'Classic' -- a book that everyone praises and nobody reads. --Mark Twain
I've seen some writers go berserk over reviews where the reviewer clearly didn't understand the book. That was never going to be me. Here's why. I've spent a lot of time reading reviews written about other people's books. I've always noticed that even the best books will get some one and two star reviews. Nothing is for everyone.
Red Phone Box doesn't follow normal novel conventions. It's also isn't exactly an anthology. It does have a lot of characters and plotlines that crisscross and weave together. For some people this was always going to be a flaw. I just happen to love things like that. I wanted it to be unusual, and it is.
So what happened when I read the review? I was a little disappointed. But it wasn't all bad. I smiled at the nice things that were said and nodded at the critical stuff, my brain immediately trying to figure out how to avoid the problems mentioned when we write the second novel.
All in all, after I took a few minutes to digest it, I was actually kind of pleased with it. Now I'm steeling myself for some worse ones. I mean, Neuromancer has some one and two star reviews and the average on Goodreads is 3.81 (with over 100,000 reviews). It's going to happen. It has to.
Someone sent me this quote: 'Classic' -- a book that everyone praises and nobody reads. --Mark Twain
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