Review Reminder: Yummy!
Just a reminder that Yummy by Lucy Cousins (reviewed here) hits bookstore shelves today.
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About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Kirkus, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on BlueSky at: @fuse8.bsky.social
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I had this thought when you reminded people about When You Reach Me’s release date, but I didn’t have time to comment. So I’ll say it now since it’s the same thing giving me pause: it seems odd for a serious book reviewer to be reminding people of the release date of particular books. It seems perfectly correct to note release dates at the end of actual review, because it’s information to help buyers. But when it comes all on its own, it seems designed to promote a particular book. It seems like you are crossing the line into being more of a promo person than an info person. Once the blog is more of a promo blog (regurgitating press releases, hyping selective release dates, etc.), then to me, at least, the reviews seem somehow less pure. I can’t rely on the reviews to be quite as objective as I anticipated they were before you started on this (what I see as a) slippery slope.
It’s been a question for me for some time. If I review a book far in advance and I particularly like it, does it make more or less sense to remind people when it’s out? My thought was that it would be more useful since folks forget, but you make a good point. It’s not as if review journals are consistently reminding people “oh, this book was reviewed two months ago so maybe you should buy it now.” They do if they have ads in them, but I’m not a walking talking ad, now am I? There’s an understanding that if a person is interested in a title then they’re going to be able to remember it again later on down the road without my help. Plus, this kind of thing makes more work for me in the long run, juggling release dates vs. when I’ve actually reviewed the books. And, as I am essentially lazy to begin with, if there’s no reason to continue to do this then I’m more than happy to stop.
Thanks for the feedback!