Michelle Kerns, Book Examiner for examiner.com is quickly becoming one of my favorite on-line finds. She recently wrote an article titled:
The Top 20 Most Annoying Book Reviewer Cliches and How to Use Them All in One Meaningless Review
The Top 20 Most Annoying Book Reviewer Cliches and How to Use Them All in One Meaningless Review
Quoted from article:
"....an even more pervasive, destructive language-killer has infiltrated the newspapers, newssites, and literary blogs of the world -- reviewerspeak.
The purpose of reviewerspeak is to force every free-thinking book, movie, and art reviewer into the submissive parroting of only a handful of approved reviewer words to describe any item that may come their way...."
"....an even more pervasive, destructive language-killer has infiltrated the newspapers, newssites, and literary blogs of the world -- reviewerspeak.
The purpose of reviewerspeak is to force every free-thinking book, movie, and art reviewer into the submissive parroting of only a handful of approved reviewer words to describe any item that may come their way...."
I'm really quite certain that I'm an offender, a laughing-at-myself offender. You simply must read Michellle's whole article. She continues with the "20 most annoying clichés book reviewers use:"
1. Gripping
2. Poignant: if anything at all sad happens in the book, it will be described as poignant
3. Compelling
4. Nuanced: in reviewerspeak, this means, "The writing in the book is really great. I just can't come up with the specific words to explain why."
5. Lyrical: see definition of nuanced, above.
6. Tour de force
7. Readable
8. Haunting
9. Deceptively simple: as in, "deceptively simple prose"
10. Rollicking: a favorite for reviewers when writing about comedy/adventure books
11. Fully realized
12. At once: as in, "Michael Connelly's The Brass Verdict is at once a compelling mystery and a gripping thriller." See, I just used three of the most annoying clichés without any visible effort. Piece of cake.
13. Timely
14. " X meets X meets X": as in, "Stephen King meets Charles Dickens meets Agatha Christie in this haunting yet rollicking mystery."
15. Page-turner
16. Sweeping: almost exclusively reserved for books with more than 300 pages
17. That said: as in, "Stephenie Meyer couldn't identify quality writing with a compass and a trained guide; that said, Twilight is a harmless read."
18. Riveting
19. Unflinching: used to describe books that have any number of unpleasant occurences -- rape, war, infidelity, death of a child, etc.
20. Powerful
Go read Michelle Kerns today!
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