i love this so much <3 this is part of why I think book clubs are so great. you can talk about all facets after a close read with others instead of boiling a book down to //5 stars.
we write about similar topics girl/would love to subscribe to read more of each others' works !!
I appreciate your thoughts Delaney! I’m still on the hunt for a book club, but I really like the idea of book clubs being a conduit for close reading and conversation!
Love this!!!! I also struggle with reviews because a “I gave this 5 stars because I was giggling and kicking my feet the entire time” and “I gave this 5 stars because this book rewrote my soul” are two VERY different vibes. I’ve been trying to do more close reading this year and it’s been fairly successful! I’ve also started writing reviews in a journal immediately after finishing the book, and getting my thoughts on literal paper has helped me organize them a lot and sort through what worked for me and what didn’t in the book.
YES! That is an important part of star reviews that I forgot to touch on in this article, thank you for bringing it up Sarah! My five star reviews are reserved for my personal canon/the books that I’d want in my forever library; it is purely subjective, because they can be by definition ‘bad’ books. This is why close readings really felt like a breath of fresh air, because nuance can be introduced. To be honest, in my March Reading List I procrastinated writing the reviews and had to play catch up on a lot of books I read last month, so your comment reminds me to write them straight away!!!! I would be so interested to learn more about your process!
What a well-written and researched article!! I resonated with a lot of what you said, particularly the goal of writing more about what we read, so as to better engage with the text and the self. What you said about close reading being more of a method than an instruction manual was !! It links to the broader notion of what you were saying about finding out what your "true north" is because once we start to notice what we are annotating a lot about, we begin to see patterns about our ideas/interests/etc.
Thank you Jakira! Why Read The Classics? really got me thinking super hard about how I engage with reading. It can be so hard explaining what close reading actually is, so I’m glad you resonated with my definition! I would even go as far to argue that my annotations have not only helped me understand what I read, but my personal mythologies and symbology!!
I wholly support you on this! I always felt like book reviewing was a little superficial and illogical. I write my literary analysis in a book journal idk if I should write it here
Right!? I was really struggling to pin point why I wasn’t vibing with it, I’m glad you understand what I mean. That would be exciting if you shared your literary analysis!
Book reviews are part of why I don't really love booktok. It feels like most people are just using books as another mean of consumption that is not very different from scrolling. Yes reading books is good for you and all that but I think you never really get the actual essence of books if you don't engage with them. Ik this comes off as a little pretentious but I promise it is not.
These are also thoughts I’ve been having about the booktok space, which perhaps I’ll add to the noise here on Substack and write about once I keep researching the nuance behind it all. Because then other topics like anti-intellectualism, accessibility, and what hobbies should actually achieve start to enter the discussion. On the other hand, it’s good to see people reading, but there’s that nagging feeling of “is this really all there is to it?”
Perhaps the only way I can engage with reading is in my own way and letting others do the same, even if it looks different to me. Still, critical thinking, analysis and thematic understanding are in short supply.
Thank you! I’ve been sitting on this opinion for a while, especially because I’ve been practicing book reviews and finally realised why it wasn’t quite clicking with me. After this, I feel a lot of relief and like I’ve figured it out!
i love this so much <3 this is part of why I think book clubs are so great. you can talk about all facets after a close read with others instead of boiling a book down to //5 stars.
we write about similar topics girl/would love to subscribe to read more of each others' works !!
I appreciate your thoughts Delaney! I’m still on the hunt for a book club, but I really like the idea of book clubs being a conduit for close reading and conversation!
Love this!!!! I also struggle with reviews because a “I gave this 5 stars because I was giggling and kicking my feet the entire time” and “I gave this 5 stars because this book rewrote my soul” are two VERY different vibes. I’ve been trying to do more close reading this year and it’s been fairly successful! I’ve also started writing reviews in a journal immediately after finishing the book, and getting my thoughts on literal paper has helped me organize them a lot and sort through what worked for me and what didn’t in the book.
YES! That is an important part of star reviews that I forgot to touch on in this article, thank you for bringing it up Sarah! My five star reviews are reserved for my personal canon/the books that I’d want in my forever library; it is purely subjective, because they can be by definition ‘bad’ books. This is why close readings really felt like a breath of fresh air, because nuance can be introduced. To be honest, in my March Reading List I procrastinated writing the reviews and had to play catch up on a lot of books I read last month, so your comment reminds me to write them straight away!!!! I would be so interested to learn more about your process!
What a well-written and researched article!! I resonated with a lot of what you said, particularly the goal of writing more about what we read, so as to better engage with the text and the self. What you said about close reading being more of a method than an instruction manual was !! It links to the broader notion of what you were saying about finding out what your "true north" is because once we start to notice what we are annotating a lot about, we begin to see patterns about our ideas/interests/etc.
Love it!!!!
Thank you Jakira! Why Read The Classics? really got me thinking super hard about how I engage with reading. It can be so hard explaining what close reading actually is, so I’m glad you resonated with my definition! I would even go as far to argue that my annotations have not only helped me understand what I read, but my personal mythologies and symbology!!
I wholly support you on this! I always felt like book reviewing was a little superficial and illogical. I write my literary analysis in a book journal idk if I should write it here
Right!? I was really struggling to pin point why I wasn’t vibing with it, I’m glad you understand what I mean. That would be exciting if you shared your literary analysis!
Book reviews are part of why I don't really love booktok. It feels like most people are just using books as another mean of consumption that is not very different from scrolling. Yes reading books is good for you and all that but I think you never really get the actual essence of books if you don't engage with them. Ik this comes off as a little pretentious but I promise it is not.
These are also thoughts I’ve been having about the booktok space, which perhaps I’ll add to the noise here on Substack and write about once I keep researching the nuance behind it all. Because then other topics like anti-intellectualism, accessibility, and what hobbies should actually achieve start to enter the discussion. On the other hand, it’s good to see people reading, but there’s that nagging feeling of “is this really all there is to it?”
Perhaps the only way I can engage with reading is in my own way and letting others do the same, even if it looks different to me. Still, critical thinking, analysis and thematic understanding are in short supply.
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This was a great essay and I found it highly insightful since I review books. 🤗
Thank you! I’ve been sitting on this opinion for a while, especially because I’ve been practicing book reviews and finally realised why it wasn’t quite clicking with me. After this, I feel a lot of relief and like I’ve figured it out!