Thanks for the review—my wife celebrates Bastille Day every year (it’s a thing) and I’m always looking for books to get her. This year it will be Adventures in the Louvre!
Why are hatchet-jobbing critics so perrennially popular with a subset of the literary tastecrowd? Dale Peck was the awful, shallow jerk of the 90s, and now I guess Long Chu is of the moment. I am not against negative reviews, I just distrust a critic who, as you note, doesn't seem to like anything they review. I get that the gibing and quipping can be funny and I don't really dispute that there's a place for such a review; I just don't understand why you would come back to the same schtick again and again rather than look for work that is actually rewarding and read by a reviewer who found merit in it.
Your reviews, for instance, are unafraid to be critical and negative, but engage with the work as work, rather than as an excuse for the performance of a diss track. Guess it's just a temperament thing, but Lauren Oyler and Long Chu are two of the least interesting and most insipid reviewers on the scene these days, and people seem to love them. For that matter, since I'm complaining, Jessa Crispin has always kind of sucked for the same reasons.
I think a lot of it is driven by the fact that generally book criticism isn't negative *enough,* so when someone dares to go negative and go hard, it can seem like a breath of fresh air. But I agree that there's a bit of audience capture at play here; people want ALC to play the hits and I doubt there'd be as much excitement over an earnest rave from her. I liked her Moshfegh piece, but if it had concluded with "...and that's why I like her work" I don't think you would have had to change much of what preceded it. I thought the Pamela Paul piece was kind of underbaked, she's almost too easy of a target and ALC tried to spin it up into something bigger about "liberalism" writ large, when there really isn't much more to say about Paul other than she's just not very insightful or interesting at all.
Do you review any indie-published novels? My historical/multicultural novel debuts on Amazon on April 19th. It has received starred reviews from Independent Book Review and Readers' Favorite. I'd love to hear your opinion.
Thanks for the review—my wife celebrates Bastille Day every year (it’s a thing) and I’m always looking for books to get her. This year it will be Adventures in the Louvre!
I always enjoy your book roundups. Appreciate you!
Why are hatchet-jobbing critics so perrennially popular with a subset of the literary tastecrowd? Dale Peck was the awful, shallow jerk of the 90s, and now I guess Long Chu is of the moment. I am not against negative reviews, I just distrust a critic who, as you note, doesn't seem to like anything they review. I get that the gibing and quipping can be funny and I don't really dispute that there's a place for such a review; I just don't understand why you would come back to the same schtick again and again rather than look for work that is actually rewarding and read by a reviewer who found merit in it.
Your reviews, for instance, are unafraid to be critical and negative, but engage with the work as work, rather than as an excuse for the performance of a diss track. Guess it's just a temperament thing, but Lauren Oyler and Long Chu are two of the least interesting and most insipid reviewers on the scene these days, and people seem to love them. For that matter, since I'm complaining, Jessa Crispin has always kind of sucked for the same reasons.
I think a lot of it is driven by the fact that generally book criticism isn't negative *enough,* so when someone dares to go negative and go hard, it can seem like a breath of fresh air. But I agree that there's a bit of audience capture at play here; people want ALC to play the hits and I doubt there'd be as much excitement over an earnest rave from her. I liked her Moshfegh piece, but if it had concluded with "...and that's why I like her work" I don't think you would have had to change much of what preceded it. I thought the Pamela Paul piece was kind of underbaked, she's almost too easy of a target and ALC tried to spin it up into something bigger about "liberalism" writ large, when there really isn't much more to say about Paul other than she's just not very insightful or interesting at all.
Hi, Michael.
Do you review any indie-published novels? My historical/multicultural novel debuts on Amazon on April 19th. It has received starred reviews from Independent Book Review and Readers' Favorite. I'd love to hear your opinion.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2NTB3J7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22PVLV4M4PJUS&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.YG2-6x55cD9oxGJ-pNGcGk3Zofi-2XsTN-q5oPsWAFUYtItI4q2IBvwx-YGepcMjJ4lOEipUbXK08y8uP5p83uRlKr946sFbFT8ZgOqs13vAQciBH1pHB486PHNiht8TIZKJ0G9KfIHrXgpiQo3NKaoFraD-8d-AFVXsnK9087pI-GstNacU5WfPOQTrMKV6jvNJRVj-hSLbyOWW7pJKYOQ5WC0r8_7pxyawkgQhAUs.38xFYIpB_QDQnUVTzEZvh8zN1_JdXcW2waM_cRlLiQ0&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+moon+goddess%27s+smile&qid=1743112599&s=books&sprefix=the+moon+goddess%27s+smile%2Cstripbooks%2C96&sr=1-1
www.catherinewu.com