I believe all authors eagerly await their first review. I know people say you shouldn’t read reviews or comment on them either if they are bad.
My first review is a two star review so it’s in the negative. I should shut up now, right? But the reviewer says some nice things about the book, which warm the cockles of my heart and touches on the things that I worked hard to achieve.
He has a major issue with an aspect of the book and that’s fine too. He highlights something that portrays the nastiness of the world and the reality that the inhabitants live with.
I believe that aspect of the book is going to be contentious. I didn’t think it would make me notorious but you know maybe it will. I’ll consider discussing these issues in further posts.
I’d also like to thank the reviewer for his review and his time in reading it.
The review is on Goodreads but is also here.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 
The reviewer was very positive about the story and your craft, Donna. The worldbuilding, characterisation, history and story were all great. I say, ‘Go, you!’ 🙂
Hi Deb. I thought so too. Thank you for saying ‘go you’. It’s nice to hear from you.
That’s a hard one, Donna. Praising the craft but hating one particular aspect of the book does make it seem more of a personal preference thing. I really love the book Prince of Thorns, and when you look at the reviews for it they are very polarised for exactly the same reason – no one really argues that the plot, worldbuilding or characterisation is lacking, and the writing is generally seen as good, but there is a lot of brutality in it and the main character, a sociopath, is often unlikable – but that’s kind of the point, so it’s not really a weakness. In the end, ther people who hated the violence or who thought the story didn’t need it didn’t like the book, while the people who didn’t mind it or who thought it was integral to the story loved it.
Kim
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 07:15:08 +0000 To: ksgaal@hotmail.com
Hi Kim
Thank you for the comment. I agree you can acknowledge the craft and the story and not like aspects of a book. I completely understand the view of the reviewer not to like that part of the story. I do have one quibble though and that’s the comment about the editor and copy editor. I will post about that later.