Am I the Literary Asshole: Do You Have to Finish a Book to Blurb It?

Welcome to the fourth edition of Am I the Literary Asshole, the only biweekly “advice” column that asks you to consider the fact that “it’s five o’clock somewhere” is the true existential quandary of our time. RIP Jimmy Buffett, you would have loved the open bar at my wedding. I’ve been delighted by the flood of emails and anonymous queries I’ve received! Scandalous stuff, to be sure. People out here naming names in the Year of our Lord 2024! Lots (and lots and lots) of questions about blurbs! Criticism that (oddly) has to do with my gender! Yet I feel I must reiterate to you, my gentle readers, that I am not, in fact, a licensed therapist; I am merely a dad out here offering up jokes that might pass as “literary advice” to only the very drunkest among us. I’m still quaffing leftover champagne from my wedding reception, so let’s pour one out (or two or three) for today’s questions and skip right to the drinking, which is indeed my favorite part: 1) My question is: is it literary asshole behavior to write a negative review of a book before it comes out? I don’t want to poop on someone’s masterpiece before it even sees the light of day, but I also want to be honest and sometimes that honesty is spicy. For context, I’m an indie bookseller so I do review for my job/talk about books publicly. Spicy honesty! You’ve come to the right place, because frankly that sounds delicious. First off, thank you for this great question. Reviews are something we talk about a lot in the literary world, and I will admit that people have vastly different opinions when it comes to books and negative criticism. It can be a very hard thing to see a review of your work that doesn’t necessarily lean favorably. At the same time, if we’re making art, then there inevitably needs to be room for honest analysis. Both things can be true at once! I don’t think I’m going to be able to answer your question with a simple […]

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