Uh oh. I think I’ve had too much codeine cough syrup.[/i]

You made me choke.

Dear John,
I can’t believe I’m writing this, but we need to break up. I thought I’d love your latest erotic Viking were-puppy shifter time travel fantasy, especially after being seduced by that Medieval vampiric former priest and his free-flowing holy water. But no. It wasn’t the secret were-puppy litter. And I was even willing to overlook the fact that Brutus was only normally endowed (where’s my ten inches, dammit!). What finally pushed me over the edge was the heroine, Florrid. I can’t believe you made her a real prostitute! What’s next, a feminist?!

Uh oh. I think I’ve had too much codeine cough syrup.

Seriously.

In a way, I guess you could say if I didn’t see, it’s possible some/many others wouldn’t even notice it either.

Or, it’s possible it was for a book genre I don’t read, so I skipped that one. Certainly possible. I’d like to read it, though, and see what I thought of the different styles.

Yes, I hear what you are saying but I know that we are going to be writing reviews from time to time that might be considered mean for the mere fact that if I read a book and think it is bad, it’s really hard to write a serious review. Robin did a pretty good job of it in her most recent review that I just posted, but I don’t know that I could have done that.

Writing a negative review addressed to the author (writing any review to the author) is actually quite difficult because you don’t want it to get too personal. When the review is negative, there is always the possibility that the comments can be taken too personally thus, when I was writing the “dear mom” review, writing it to someone other than the other, I felt more freedom.

I try never to take into the author’s feelings when writing a review because the reviews aren’t written for authors (despite the schtick here) and because taking into an author’s feelings can really impact a person’s honesty. I really struggled with the Eve Silver review because I met Eve and she’s just a great great person.

Dear Specific Person could come across as exclusionary, while Dear Mom might work fine for a ‘good’ review (in this case I think we’d all be picturing a stereotypical mom, or if not, the little tidbits you dropped in the letter would flesh out the mom in question. Worked for ‘Maris’ and ‘Charlie’ all those years… *g*).

On the other hand, a ‘bad review’ letter to mom *might* run the risk of coming off as too snarky/mean, the humour becoming more important than the meat of the review itself, and the review essentially being viewed more for the bon mots and not for relevant info on the book.

Tough call. I think the format would work best for those guilty pleasure books, the ones that are sooo bad, yet you love, love, love them!