Week 5 R.A. Prompt

Based on the provided reviews, A Billionaire's First Christmas is definitely not romantic suspense, as the reviewers refute virtually every characteristic of that genre. In fact, even for romance the reviews make the story sound quite cozy. While the Amazon reviewer reveals her bias toward the holiday subgenre, "I do love a good Christmas romance," her review strikes me as more reliable since her personal comments don't overwhelm her assessment of the book. The blogger's review is all over the place with too much personal detail (her travel plans, two mentions of reading on New Year's Eve) and even incomplete sentences. Overall, the too casual tone makes me discount this review. As for buying this title, holiday fiction circs well at our branch, so if I were buying for this genre, I'd consider how many new titles were available for the season from perennially popular writers such as Debbie Macomber, Nancy Thayer, and Elin Hildebrand. If we had money and room to add a few more, I'd probably buy this title. A lot of our patrons, even those who often read literary fiction, tell me they take a break and only read light titles in December and this would seem to fit perfectly -- the author's name is even Holly!

Turning to the Angela's Ashes reviews, they present a compelling case that this is a "must buy, must read" book. For me, the Kirkus Review paints the most engaging description of the book, introducing the reader to the author and his family members with details of their difficult lives that manage to make delving further into this seemingly sad tale seem like the only logical choice. Who wouldn't want to know more about how the author "magically retrieves love, dignity, and humor from a childhood of hunger, loss, and pain"?  Since I did read this book years ago, it's difficult to set aside my personal opinion that Frank McCourt's incredible ability to write so honestly about his horrific childhood makes Angela's Ashes a classic memoir.

In choosing books for monthly book talks and displays at work, and for my own reading, I skim through reviews on a regular basis. While I know not to expect a critical view from sources like BookPage, positive review publications do provide summaries that are useful in sorting through new titles to develop a list of titles worth looking at more closely. An extended BookPage article about Dean Koontz' Ashley Bell prompted me to put it on my "to read" list and I enjoyed the book but probably would not have read it without that article. The monthly LibraryReads and Indie Next lists understandably include positive comments from the librarians or book sellers who have recommended a particular title. I use sources of positive only reviews as an abstract of new titles,  then seek out more critical reviews for books that I am considering for recommendation to our monthly group as I know participants will want to know more about the book's strengths and weaknesses. It does seem unfortunate that some titles are favorably and prominently reviewed in multiple publications while other worthwhile books go virtually unnoticed, but the ease of accessing online information can mitigate the imbalance a bit. Overall I can almost always find useful information on a title I'm considering.