How was that?

Reviews have an entrenched place in our societal fabric. Humans are creatures that love to share things. Stories, ideas, music, pictures, plants, art, anything we can interact with we enjoy sharing with each other. “Have you ever seen tulips in the twilight?” someone might ask. “They’re marvelous.” they review.

Critique, or perhaps more accurately judgement, fills our sentences. With each new ‘something’ that we share we also share our ideas around it, how it connected with us, how it made us feel, how it made us think. These things helps us convey this ‘something’ to someone else. There’s an assumption that if someone says, “Hey, have you seen Terminator?” that they probably like it, or think you’ll like it. In that assumption is a form of review. “Tiffany likes the Terminator movies.”

However, as the printed word has evolved, the business of written critique has grown alongside. Now there are careers in which your opinions will be published and sent out to the masses. A writer spends a better part of their decade working on a piece about the history of Tomatoes and their place in anthropology. A reviewer who has never gardened in their life, much less has any interest in gardening, writes in their column, “3/10, about as dry as a 1500s spanish tomato.” I am unsure if this is a net positive gain for humanity or not, but I would lean towards ’no.’ Everything is able to be critiqued, but should it be? Should everything be critiqued by anybody?

Who should talk about this?

I’m not a structural engineer and the chances that the person reading this right now, you, (hi), is a structural engineer is pretty low. If you or I were asked to review a new book on structural engineering that was written for engineers by engineers, would we be the best people to review that book? Would our critique be capable of giving additional value to the material through our input? Are we knowledgeable enough to grasp hidden information or spot errors? Probably not.

Therein lies my issue with most reviews. I love music, I listen to a lot, and I’ll talk about a lot on this website. There are genres of music that don’t connect with me, even though I wish they would. Metal is a genre that I can’t seem to crack. In theory, I’d love it. I love heavy guitars, really dramatic drum parts, solos, screaming vocals, and darker lyrics. In practice… It’s not for me. So who am I to review a metal album? Am I really going to understand the beats and undercurrents of each track? Do I have the knowledge to make comparisons between the music at hand and other bands? Do I even WANT to do it? Should I do it if I don’t want to? Should I really listen to music I don’t like and then give it a rating? Is that fair to the artists if I know I do not resonate with a genre and then I choose to review it? What if I love the genre, but just not this band?

Life is difficult, joy is sparse, and negativity is rampant. I would prefer a review of a jazz band by someone that loves and understands it. I would prefer a critical review of a piece of music if they spoke about its strengths, how it compares to other music, and approaches what they believe doesn’t interest them in a critical and informed way. I would most prefer reading about material that the author is both deeply passionate about and connected to. I want to hear your success story reviews. Tell me about a song that CHANGED you! Tell me about a song that made you cry for the first time in years! Move me like this piece of content moved you. Don’t leave me in a hole with the discarded scraps of an album you didn’t enjoy but felt the need to write two thousand words about.

Who should review things? Should you not be allowed to leave a negative review? I think you should. I think you need to be smart about it.

What makes a good negative review?

There’s a limit on the amount of negativity I can tolerate in a review. If you watched a movie, a truly bad movie, something like Which Brings Me to You, and you’re a hundred bullet points into its flaws; Chill.

While we all love to hate something, I just don’t think that there’s a use for this kind of review content. You didn’t like the movie. Cool. Are there more thoughts to that? Do I need to know every bullet point of why? Maybe instead I should know more about your experience with the movie. What did you think about it before you watched it? What lead you to see it? Why didn’t you turn it off? What did you enjoy about it? Sell me on the through line on why i should care about this movie. It’s hard to make a good movie! It’s not a secret that there are bad films out there.

I want to be sold on why this ‘something’ that you’re discussing is worth talking about when its bad. Why talk about it? “Hey, that Terminator movie, how was it?” “Oh man, not great. I didn’t like the characters at all, and the plot didn’t interest me.” “Oh man that’s too bad… Can you elaborate for another two thousand words though?”

What makes a good positive review?

It gets you interested in the topic at hand and you are immediately making a plan to engage with it for yourself. It makes you think about something in a different way, or adds a layer of connection you hadn’t thought about. It lifts up the topic and lets you re-live it through the digestive lens of the discussion.

There’s a reason word of mouth is still the number one marketing tool. If someone you trust tells you that there’s a movie you’d like, you’ll probably like it. One of the best ways to promote a small business is to talk about it. That’s why I’m begging you, please tell your friends about this website.¹

My favorite kind of reviews, as told in a review of my own

In general, as you may have surmised, I am not a fan of reviews. However, there was a book that changed my perspective on what they can be and how they can be used. John Green’s first non-fiction book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, was something that changed my perspective on a lot of things.

Firstly, it changed my perspective on essay books.

You talkin’ ‘bout me essays?

A lot of us feel a certain dread when we hear the word ’essay.’ “Great, another class assignment. 1400 words on Napolean. How am I going to live??” As an adult, and someone with an attention span I am desperately trying to wrangle, the humble essay suits my time well. Should I have but a few minutes to read, I can gain a sense of accomplishment. If I want to share part of a book, I don’t need to provide added context around it. If I want to engage in reading in increments over the course of several months, I wont forget any of the plot needed to continue from where I left off. Essays are a wonderful toe-dip into a topic.

When I was reading the Anthropocene Reviewed, available now at your local library², I started at the front, like you would do with most books. But this isn’t necessary for all essay books. I was reading the book out loud to my partner. Sometimes I’d read a chapter in the car while we drove to the store, or while we were headed out on a date night. Each time I’d crack to the table of contents and read down a list of topics we hadn’t read yet. “What about velociraptors?” I’d ask. You like those!"

The topics in this particular book of essays are all over the place. It covers Dr. Pepper, CNN, Sunsets, Canada Geese, Googling Strangers, and even Kentucky Bluegrass. While that may not sound riveting, each essay touches on large elements of the topic. Historical background, trivia, connections with the world, personal connections, and it ties together with the author’s experience for the review. I deeply enjoyed getting to micro-dose on a handful of different topics one after the other. If I wasn’t interested, it was over quickly, but if I was interested, I was eager to find out what else would catch my attention next.

Was the book good?

At the end of each essay, John rates the topic out of 5 stars.³ (Although he uses half stars, so it’s still a ten point scale. The “Five star half star” system is a fraud and I might write on that topic some day, but not today.) These reviews aren’t pointed or intended to destroy or harm the topic at hand. Instead, John finds a way to make the review about his own experience. His lens for the material leaves you with the impression that he is telling a story about his life, and not reviewing the material itself. When he reviews Kentucky Bluegrass, or the Plague, both of which he deeply hates, it reads through the ire of his own gaze and not as if the grass itself is inherently bad, even if he tells you that it objectively is bad.

To me, that’s what effective reviews do. Perspective is just that; subjective. You may hate something I love. I may love reading a negative review of bluegrass even if I love it myself if that review carries me into your world and lets me see how things are different inside if your mind. Bring me on your journey and let’s share that piece of you together. Negative reviews tend to separate; they pit an us (good content makers) vs them (the bad content). As if we’re incapable of making bad content ourselves?

When we ask, “Was it good?” we don’t want a robotic “2 stars.” as a response. We want a story. We want to understand why you thought what you did. We want to be let in on the secret of your mind. When you smell a flower and pass it to someone else to sniff, you’re inviting them along with you. You’re putting them in the same presence you were just inside moments ago.

To me, that’s what good reviews are, whether they’re negative or not.

Where do we go from here?

I’m a newcomer to review content, or to writing it I should say. I hope to write something in the future that can bring you each along for the ride with me. Something that evokes the sense of time and place occurring when the subject was. Something that makes you feel as though you might have been there; like a memory long faded but still vibrant in parts.

When it comes to concepts and experiences, I can undoubtedly say that I will be writing negative reviews. When it comes to art, I don’t think so. I would rather spend my time writing about something I would want to re-live and experience again than a song or painting that did nothing for me. The value for me is in growing interest in someone else for something I have interest in.

We are all our own bees in a field of plants cross pollinating each other with one idea after the next. I would like the ideas I carry to my fellow plants to be something that will help the grow and not a disease I picked up along the way.

For me, that is my path. For you, that is yours to discover.

I hope whatever path you’re on brings you to a plethora of good art and experiences that you’re eager to share with the world. There are endless steps in a journey but the most important one is the next one.

I’m excited to get started again.

I give “Reviews” three out of five stars.