On Kirkus.

By now, I'm sure you know that Kirkus will soon be no more. 

And by now, I'm sure that you've seen the plethora of responses to the news.

I'm in the I'm-going-to-miss-it camp.  Not just because I'm pro-negative reviews -- which I am* -- but also because it seemed like they often had a different take on books than the other outlets, and generally, the more varied the responses, the more interested I get.

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*Not because I'm a Super Mean Lady, but because I like it when people are straightforward** and I feel that wearing rose-colored glasses somehow, I don't know, lessens the subject.  Like if a review withholds criticism and pulls punches, somehow it isn't treating the subject seriously.  I don't know if that actually makes any real sense to anyone other than myself.

**If a book drives a reviewer so bananas that s/he throws it at the wall, I WANT TO KNOW, you know?

Comments

[tanita]

Yeah. They were reviews that mattered -- one way or another. If ANYONE got a good review from them, you felt like you could take it seriously.

...makes me sad that I won't be able to pit myself against them anymore.

[Mike O.]

Gosh, one bad review seems to poison an author's brain forever... I reviewed for Kirkus for years; I liked most of the books I read. I read Kirkus regularly. Most of their reviews are good.

[Pepperrae]

I too used Kirkus as the last word when I was using multiple review sources in collection development. If they said the book was good it usually was good; if they said it was a bit of tripe they were usually right. And considering the amount of crap that sits on my shelves that got good reviews, it seems that other journals were not so willing to be truthful.