I don’t know about others, but for me, the entire year has been fairly disappointing in new books. I am stingy about giving 4 and 5 stars, but I haven’t come across many new books deserving of them this year.
While talking about this with my husband, we began to wonder if the COVID pandemic is partially to blame. So many people had more time for writing, and the demand for books was higher in 2020. It made us wonder if editors were stretched too thin and that maybe the usual attention to detail was pushed aside in some cases, like with consistently best-selling authors. Were their projects placed into a pile of “don’t worry too much, they know what they’re doing”? Because in a few cases this year, I have to wonder if that was it.
And then there’s indie publishing. Were they short-staffed or overwhelmed with great ideas that maybe didn’t get worked through as well as they should have before going to the presses? I’ve encountered a couple of indie publishers that I think publish anything they are presented with because they don’t want to discourage writers, but some of them should not have been put out.
And what about self-published books. With the internet and everyone being at home last year, self-published books were on the rise. But who reviewed them first? Was there a peer-editing or beta reading process, or did they just through them out to the world?
I am aware that I could be totally off on all of this. It could just be me. Maybe I’m on book burnout. Or maybe I’m onto something.
I know that there are plenty of people who disagree with my thoughts, and I love that. Books are not meant to resonate with everyone. I know that for every book that I don’t enjoy, someone else considers it a favorite. And that is one of the great things in the book world. We unite in conversation over our bookish opinions, whether we agree or not. I love hearing why someone hated a book that I loved or loved a book that I hated.
Experiences in Reading 