When the Author Comments On Your Less Than Glowing Review

I don’t review very many books at all.  I read a lot of books and I will almost always rate them on goodreads, but I rarely take the time to write any sort of review.  Part of it is laziness on my part.  I read the book, I rate the book (and make sure it’s added to my books read this year on goodreads because, yes, it matters more than it should to me to reach my goal), and then usually move on to the next book.  I also don’t think reviewing books is necessarily my gift; other people write much more interesting reviews than I typically do, so I usually leave it to them.  Persistence is my gift, so if I read a book that I just know a friend or family member will love I usually just hound them until they read it in an effort to make me go away quietly.  In my defense, they usually like the book.

All of that being said, once in a while I do review a book on goodreads.  There’s not much of a system to my deciding which ones to actually write a review of, but it’s usually for a book that wasn’t what I expected (good or bad) or a case where I thought my rating needed an explanation of sorts. 

Last year hubby and I were in a cookbook book club, and I reviewed a few of the cookbooks we used.  I gave one of them a less than stellar review. 

Now, I’d like to take a moment to throw something out there about books read in any sort of book club.  I’ve noticed that the reactions to the books tend to be strong.  It makes sense to me.  You have a group of people choosing books for the whole group to read; not everyone is going to love every book they read, especially if it’s a book they might not have chosen on their own.  The other side of that is that sometimes you come across an unexpected treasure – a book you never would have picked up on your own, but one that you absolutely love.  So it makes sense to me that the ratings for book club books might not be very middle of the road since it can easily be a book your felt forced to read, or a book you never would have found, but totally rocked your world.  Has anyone else noticed this?

Back to my less than stellar review.  I gave the book two stars, which on goodreads means “it was okay”.  Here’s my review:

I bought this cookbook because it was the one being used for a cookbook book club, otherwise, I probably wouldn't have bought it. I thought it was somewhat over-priced in the grand scheme of available cookbooks. All of the recipes that I made, or tried, were very, very good. However, I have two major issues with this cookbook.

The first problem is with the book itself; it was not designed as a cookbook, it was designed more along the lines of a coffee table book. It's very pretty to look at, but an absolute pain to use. The book doesn't lay flat and the shape is very awkward. It's extremely difficult to follow a recipe when the cookbook won't stay open. I finally ended up copying the last recipe I made, just to have an easier time using it. It seems silly to have to make a copy for yourself from a cookbook you own. There are also some typos in the book. I know that's not a huge deal, but it's not something I was expecting to find in an over-priced cookbook.

The second problem is with the actual recipes; while they are delicious, they're not always very practical for cooking at home. Some of the quantities are basically insane to make at home. It seems like they just put the cafe recipes in the book and didn't reduce or adapt them for cooking at home, even though it's sold as a home cookbook. Sure, sometimes you do need a dish or dessert to feed 10 - 20 people, but not that often. Quite a few of the recipes in this cookbook leave you with much more food than you can possibly consume at home. They don't really seem to lend themselves to being halved either. I also thought that the cookbook doesn't always take into consideration what is available in the average home kitchen; quite a few of the recipes call for unusual sized pans, a standing mixer, food processor, etc. It just seems like some of the kitchen tools it assumed you will have aren't necessarily standard.

Overall, I can't say that this will ever become one of my "go-to" cookbooks. It's just not a good format for someone who actually intends to use it, not just decorate with it, and for the money, there are definitely better cookbooks available.

And now, here’s the author’s recently posted comment:

Thanks for your comments Danielle! The book is a very creative book, where many of the recipes were pulled from my restaurant days. ALthough, I am not the only book that has large quantity recipes. Ina Garten and The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook are very similar her recipes.
I agree totally on the cover of the book, but people also love the look of the book. I am working on changing the cover.
Thank you so much for your comments, they all help!!!

I’ll be honest, I thought it was a little weird.  I don’t think my review was scathing.  It was my honest opinion, and I tried to explain why I didn’t like the cookbook instead of just saying I think there are better cookbooks out there.  I didn’t post anything at all on the author’s website.  I just reviewed the book on goodreads. 

I don’t think the author’s comment is really that bad, but I don’t think it’s entirely appropriate either.  Maybe it’s just me, but it has the feel of having been fired off in a hurry, which is usually a bad idea.  It also seems like it’s aimed at changing my mind when she points to another cookbook that has something I said I didn’t like about hers.  Furthermore, my review was for a finished cookbook, not an advance copy or any sort of pre-release, so I don’t think the part about changing the cover was especially relevant.  That’s how it was published, so I think she needs to deal with the fact that at least one reviewer didn’t like it.

I won’t say that the author’s comment has put me off buying her next cookbook because I probably wouldn’t have anyway based on the first one, but it definitely didn’t make me likely to re-think that decision.  I stand by my review.

I’m just not sure how appropriate it is for authors to comment on reviews like that.  I’ve heard of authors not reading reviews of their work for fear of responding inappropriately.  I can’t help wondering if that’s a better choice than responding even a little defensively to a less than glowing review. 

So what are your thoughts on the author commenting on a less than glowing review?  Have you had an author comment on any of your reviews?

Friday Favorites – My Favorite Things About the End of Summer

***This is the first post in a new series called Friday Favorites – every Friday I will release a new Friday Favorites topic.  Participation is easy, just link up to the latest Friday Favorites post and let us know in the comments that you’re participating so we can all check out your favorites.  Next week’s Friday Favorites topic will be “your favorite poem”.  ***

I can’t believe how fast the year is flying by.  It seems like we were just taking down the Christmas tree and now Labor Day weekend has come and gone.

Labor Day seems to mark the end of summer, though according to the calendar, fall doesn’t begin until September 22^nd this year.  So it seems like the next couple of weeks mark the tail end of summer.  I’ve always loved the very end of summer. 

I love how the nights and mornings are already a little cooler.  The days are still warm, even a little hot some days, but the nights and early mornings are cooler.  The air conditioner doesn’t run as much, and there’s a peaceful silence late at night and early in the morning.

I’m enjoying harvesting the very last of the garden produce.  In our garden, we’re down to only cherry tomatoes, but they are still going strong, and are still sweet and delicious.  It’s interesting to see how much longer they will last.  

There’s also an anticipation in the air.  Fall is coming and seems to be on everyone’s mind. Some might argue that anticipating fall isn’t part of summer’s end, but I think it is.  There’s a rhythm to swapping out the summer clothes for warmer pieces and breaking out the soup and stew recipes in anticipation of using them soon.  Sometimes looking forward to something is better than the event itself.  The end of summer offers that for fall. 

The end of summer offers the ritual of the last time wearing certain clothes and shoes this year, or the last trip to the pool, or last vacation this year.  Some things are made so much sweeter when there’s a finite time for enjoying them – watching the tan lines fade and putting away the breezy summer dresses until next year.  I love to savor the very end of summer and watch it slowly turn into the beginning of fall. 

Announcing Friday Favorites

In an effort to get on something resembling a somewhat regular blogging schedule I’ve decided to give Friday Favorites a try.  I realize it isn’t Friday, but the idea struck so I’m going with it.  Every Friday from now on I will write a post on a Friday Favorites topic and release next week’s Friday Favorites topic. 

Participating is easy, just link up to the latest Friday Favorites post and let us know in the comments that you’re participating so we can all check out your Friday Favorites.  Why not end the week on a positive note?

I plan to try it for about a month and see how it goes.  That’s one of my favorite things about blogging, trying out new ideas to see what does and doesn’t work for me. 

So, without further ado, tomorrow’s Friday Favorites topic is “your favorite things about the end of summer”. 

Simple Solution Review

***I’ve decided to start reviewing some products that I really like and think others might like too, and the ones that I wish someone had warned me away from.  Please note that I am not any kind of affiliate for these products.  Any links provided are just for your convenience. ***

This one was recommended by one of my pet transport friends, and it has become one of my favorite cleaning products. 

I love pets; we have five, we occasionally foster, and I sometimes do rescue transports.  The only bad side to all of that are the occasional pet messes.  For the most part I’ve been really lucky with the transport pets; they’re almost always very well behaved and very rarely make any kind of mess in the car. But accidents happen. 

When I was transporting this adorable little puppy his little bladder just couldn’t hold it until the next stop.  Unfortunately it soaked through the blanket I had on the seat. 

I cleaned the car seat as soon as I got home with a mixture of Lysol and water.  I thought everything was fine until the next afternoon when I got in the car and caught a faint whiff of urine.  I cleaned it again with Lysol, and again thought everything was fine.  The next few days were cooler and I didn’t smell anything.  Then we had a warmer day and the smell was definitely back. 

The next time around I tried straight vinegar.  I thought surely that since I was now driving the vinegar-mobile the urine smell would be gone.  Wrong.  The next warm afternoon yielded a urine smell with some vinegar undertones. That’s not a good smell!  Not good at all.

At that point I decided to check with some of my fellow transporters thinking that surely someone would have found something that works.  The two most popular solutions were cleaning the car with a carpet cleaner and Simple Solution.

Renting a carpet cleaner is time consuming and gets to be a little expensive, so I decided to try Simple Solution first.  I can’t remember how much the bottle cost, but I remember it being fairly comparable to (maybe a little cheaper than?) Nature’s Miracle (which I think is useless). 

The instructions were to spray the Simple Solution, let it sit, and then blot it up.  It didn’t even call for hard scrubbing!  Once again, the urine smell seemed to be gone, though by this time I was nervous.  The next warm afternoon came – and no urine smell.  Not even the faintest little whiff!

The Simple Solution worked!  It has been months, and we’ve had some really hot days, but the smell never came back.  We’ve started using Simple Solution for any pet related cleaning and it works great.  I’ve told several friends about it, and they’ve all said it works great for all of their pet messes as well. 

The spray has a very light, pleasant scent.  It reminds me of clean laundry, which is one of the things I like about it.  It doesn’t have that sickly sweet air freshener scent, though there’s definitely a scent.  The scent isn’t strong, it doesn’t linger, and it definitely works. 

Summer Vegetable Pizza

This pizza is quick, easy, delicious, and a great way to make use of the summer produce.  You can play with the measurements and ingredients to make use of whatever cheese and vegetables you happen to have on hand.  We seem to use a slightly different combination of vegetables (depending on what we have on hand) each time, but it’s always really good.

1 refrigerated pre-made pizza crust

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 – 4 garlic cloves, pressed or chopped (we use 4 because we love garlic)

Italian Seasoning

Parsley

Salt & Pepper

1 onion, thinly sliced

Squash and/or Zucchini, sliced

Tomatoes, sliced

Shredded Cheese

Roll the crust out on a bar pan or cookie sheet.  If you’re using a well seasoned pan you don’t need to oil the bottom, if not you’ll want to oil the bottom of your pan.  Mix garlic cloves into olive oil and spread over crust.  Sprinkle with Italian Seasoning and Parsley.  

Bake at 350 for 8 – 11 minutes.

Sprinkle cheese over the crust.  It’s really good if you use a mix of cheddar and mozzarella.  Then layer on your vegetables.  Sprinkle the veggies with Italian Seasoning, parsley, salt and pepper to taste.  Layer on some more cheese. 

Bake at 350 for 15 – 18 minutes.

Enjoy!