Reading Reader Reviews

The Web has democratized the reviewing process, of everything from washing machines to widgets to, of course, books, where Amazon started the trend. Alas, the reviewing landscape has gotten a bit wild and woolly, what with fake reviews, both  positive and negative, meant to drive up or down reputations. Leaving those problems aside, reading reviews of one's books yields a fascinating range of experiences, from inspirational pleasure to exasperated hair-pulling. Some blithe souls review not the book but the delivery service. "Received in good condition, thanks!" Then, too, what am I to make of this comment on Amazon, about my college-level text in history? "It's pretty small and compact unit. The instructions are quite informative and easy to read and understand. The projector casing feels like it's made from a strong durable aluminum. The unit seams very sturdy and robust."
    Then there are those reviews that are not particularly favorable, yet bring a smile to the author's face nonetheless. In an earlier blog entry I noted the student who gave five stars to my college text (oooh, five stars, great!) only to discover the air being let out of my balloon in his comments. "Man, I love college! Passing class with A and haven't read a page!" Then there was the review, on Goodreads, of They Say, my book about Ida B. Wells and her campaign against lynching. "I probably wouldn't have read this if it wasn't for school," the reviewer noted, "but for a non-fiction historical book, it didn't make me want to put a hole in my head, and I feel that's always a plus."
    Wow! That would grab your attention as a blurb on the dust-jacket. "Didn't make me want to put a hole in my head!"--Dolores, from Goodreads.
     Contrasting reviews demonstrate the wide range of human tastes and desires. For some readers, A Little History of the United States hits the sweet spot in terms of length and coverage: "...good at being able to talk about the various things/people/ideas that have made America what it is today. And all without getting bogged down in side stories, tangents, or extraneous details." For others, the book seemed almost painfully short: "It flows at breakneck speed and because it is a potted history of a long period and of a diverse and huge country there are things left out, alluded too and not quite covered..." (True enough, although actually, he still liked the book.)

    Similarly, Great Heart (co-authored with my paddling partner John Rugge) tells the story of three expeditions across Labrador. The first, launched in 1903, ends in starvation and death. The follow-up, in 1905, involves two rival expeditions, each seeking to complete the work of the original trek. In addition, a love story becomes part of the tale, as one of the main characters, a Scottish-Cree Indian guide, falls for the widow leading one of the trips. Some reviewers resist that aspect:: "I really liked the first half of the book. The second half started out strong but there was a romance that was intimated and it was too much of a focus and took away from the story." Other readers feel that the romance adds to the interest: "One of the best books I've read in a while. A true adventure... with a great love story at the center. Very touching. If you like expeditions, this is the book for you."
    For me, though, the reviews that most satisfy are not measured  by praise or blame but reveal readers' life experiences. People engage with their books intensely, for better or worse. Great Heart was emphatically not the ticket one reader was seeking, as the review below reveals—though it's a bit hard to say whether the reviewer's dissatisfaction arose from the book itself or from her own life experiences. Who is this Brandon and where did he go?

[Great Heart] Really sad and depressing. NOTE TO SELF: Once again, don't go out into the arctic wilderness with no food and no way to catch more food.
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I need to have another group [into which I sort my readings]: either a) books that Brandon has left behind at my house and I have read by default; or b) books that Brandon has so agonizingly slow been reading that I've picked it up just so someone has finished it.

More positively, I've found that the first book John Rugge and I wrote over forty years ago, The Complete Wilderness Paddler, has  become an intimate part of many readers lives:

Another one of the books my dad left me. As a kid and young man, I rode along with him and listened to his advice (mostly), followed his prescriptions for packing, scouting, map-reading, navigating, portaging, and paddling. If he said a portage was in order, it was. Our canoe had a bent keel from going over a falls in a harrowing escape, and we never cut corners ever again after that.
    Now that I read this book, complete with underlining, highlighting, and scribbled notes, it is all here. It's as if he's there; I can hear his voice as he explains the J-Stroke, hops out, grabs a rope and leads the canoe down a tiny drop or through some shallow rapids...
   This review is not intended to be a personal memoir, but those memories I have of the rugged Canadian backwaters are treasured. And they were possible because Dad read this book and the advice worked. It was not his only resource, mind you, but many of the key lessons in canoeing are here. And they work.

And finally, a Goodreads review by a woman named Sally, which touched me greatly—not so much for the praise as for her own pungent story-telling and the help the book provided for her own adventures:

My family read this book out loud together while preparing for a 10-day canoe-camping trip in northern Minnesota and Canada back when I was in high school. It seems to me that white-boards and dry-erase markers had just recently been invented at that time, and my parents bought a large one (about 4 feet wide by 5 feet tall) and hung it on the wall in our basement. As we read the book we began creating a packing list on the big white-board, with many different categories and sub-categories.

The book itself was much more than a "how-to" book and was really enjoyable reading. The technical information was interspersed with the telling of the true story of four young men planning and executing an extended trip down Quebec's isolated Moisie River, a south-flowing tributary to the St. Lawrence River. It was nearly 30 years ago that I read this book, so I don't remember many of the details--just that there was plenty of humor and some drama.

Our own trip was much less adventurous than the trip described in the book, but was nonetheless the longest canoe trip my family ever took. We paddled northward down the Granite River from Gunflint Lake to Saganaga Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Canada border. We checked in at the Canadian border station, accessible only by canoe, just to say we did, though the officer seemed like he would have preferred to not be bothered. The main reason for stopping, though, was to pick up some McIntosh's toffee at the little store. From there we did a long circuit through the many bays and around the large islands of Canada's Northern Lights Lake. I don't remember whether we saw any northern lights on that trip, but we did see some moose, and of course, plenty of beaver lodges and beaver dams.

One campsite, in particular, stands out in my mind, where I wandered into the woods and found a delightful glen decorated with umpteen different varieties a moss and lichen. I don't remember whether or not I took off my shoes to feel the moss on my bare feet. I sure hope I did. Then again, it would have been a shame to step on the moss. Up close it looked like a miniature forest, with so much intricate detail, that I could easily imagine it being the setting for a Dr. Seuss story with all kinds of magical little characters going about their daily business, conducting their transactions in quaint rhymes. Who would dare interfere with that?

Perhaps it was this book that started me in my long fascination with a genre that I call "wilderness-adventure" books. The book is probably not so great that it would capture the attention of someone who is not interested in canoeing or wilderness travel. Nostalgia probably plays a large part in my 5-star rating, for thinking of this book reminds me of mist rising from still water, the birch and evergreen forest and surprise patches of blueberries. Surely there must have been mosquitoes, but I guess I was used to them back then. The memories are all happy ones: flexing my muscles against the paddle, imagining that whatever boy I liked at the time would be impressed if he could see me, dipping my cup into the lake to take a drink, and the nearly soundless sound of our heavily scratched, yellow aluminum canoe gliding through the water, with its black peace sign made of electrical tape on the bow.

Years later, when my parents were divorcing, my mom removed the peace sign. I hadn't known that for her it was a symbol of my dad's forthright expression of his own opinions without regard for hers. But maybe it didn't always mean that to her. We all seemed pretty happy on that trip.

Wonderful recollections, wonderful writing—evocative, imaginative, poignant!