David*Macinnis*Gill.com

My next book, Invis­i­ble Sun, is due out in a cou­ple of months, which means that reviews are start­ing to fil­ter in.  Reviews come from two pri­mary sources these days, print jour­nals and review blogs.  Print jour­nals have been around for­ever. Blog reviews are a very recent phe­nom­e­non. When Soul Enchi­lada came out in 2009, there were very few blogs that reviewed YA ARCs. Now, there are dozens, maybe hun­dreds. There is Goodreads (which I avoid like a cloak re-gifted by Medea)adding to the del­uge. While the source of the reviews have changed, one thing hasn’t, and that’s the var­ied qual­ity of the reviews. In both print and blog­ger reviews, the qual­ity of the writ­ing and insight varies greatly.  To me, though, it doesn’t mat­ter because I don’t read them unless either some­one sends me a link or mails me a paper copy of the review.  I don’t seek the reviews out any­more, and I use an app to block review sites from search results.  I don’t like read­ing even ter­rific reviews. Why?  Because I’m thin-skinned. And that, that is a good thing.

Writ­ers are com­monly told to grow a thick skin.  That, my friends, is non­sense, because thick-skinned peo­ple are not very good writ­ers.  They are bul­let proof to crit­i­cism, yes, but they also lack the insight and empa­thy required to feel the emo­tions that should res­o­nant through­out their work.  Two recent nov­els, See You at Harry’s and The Fault in Our Stars, are full of such raw, ter­ri­ble emo­tions that they move the read­ers to tears.  Nei­ther of the authors are thick-skinned. They are empa­thetic, cre­ative, and sen­si­tive. They have great insight into the human con­di­tion. They see what we can’t and hold up a mir­ror so that we can see our­selves. Remove those qual­i­ties from the writ­ers, wrap them in pro­tec­tive cal­louses, and no reader will shed a tear at their work. No one will care enough to write a review.

So the next time you read that Author X must suf­fer gladly the slings and arrows of cri­tique, con­sider this: If Author X changes, there would be no great char­ac­ters, no heart-breaking story, and no emo­tion that lingers for days after the read­ing.  In fact, there would be no book at all, which would be a very sad thing indeed.

***Thanks to every­one for the com­ments, retweets, and reposting.