About
Hi there!
My name is Andrea, and I live in Michigan with my husband and too many books. My favorite genres of speculative fiction include space opera, new weird, low fantasy, and books with teeth and spines that slice you up before you realize what’s happening. I love unreliable narrators, characters who don’t yet trust the reader, metaphors that are mask-wearing truths. I like weird things, I like unexpected things, I like books that send me down a rabbit hole of thought experiments.
An incomplete list of my favorite authors includes Steven Brust, N.K. Jemisin, Scott Lynch, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Jeff Vandermeer, Iain M. Banks, Robert Jackson Bennett, Yoon Ha Lee, Cordwainer Smith, C.S.E. Cooney, and many others.
My reviewing style is, erm, impressionistic. You know, like the painters? All of my weird metaphors make perfect sense to me because reading is like swimming through sand, phrases have texture and physical weight, and songs on the radio have taste and color. Sometimes falling through the right words is more like flying than swimming because all of my senses get mixed up. And sometimes I “review” a book without actually reviewing it at all. Sometimes I spent 1200 words trying to articulate how much I loved a book, and sometimes I spent 1200 words to explain why I think a book didn’t work. This site contains positive reviews, critical reviews, observational reviews, not-reviews, combined to over 500 book reviews.
I’m contrary and unpredictable. I’ll be super excited about a new book, and then not read it for six months. I’m a mood reader. I save books for when I need them. I’ll love one book by one of my favorite authors, and bounce off hard with their next book.
Because a) picky AF, b) aforementioned too many books, and c) severely limited reading time, I am currently unable to accept review requests.
Some Q & A for those of you who are still reading:
Do you write negative reviews? Yes. Sometimes a book didn’t work for me, sometimes it just sucked. I’m getting better at being respectful. Lately though, I’ve just been DNF’ing anything that isn’t working for me.
Do your reviews have spoilers? If the book is old, probably. I don’t feel bad spoiling a book that is 50 years old. I think I recently gave some spoilers to a book that was only 10 years old.
I messaged you on twitter to review my book, why won’t you review by book? Trust me, it’s not you, it’s me. I have very, VERY limited time to read, and it takes me forever to read a book and then write a review. So I will prioritize books that I want to read over books that other people want me to read.
How come you didn’t reply to my comment on your post? Again, it’s not you, it’s me. I am an exhausted introvert who hit sensory overload about 10 minutes ago. I struggle to respond to text messages that my best friend sent me.
Didn’t you used to write for SFSignal? and didn’t you used to do interviews at Apex Magazine? Yep! I loved those two gigs! Best experiences of my life! I recently began interviewing authors at Nerds of a Feather, you should check it out!
What’s your five year plan? to be the cougar at a Fallout Boy concert.
1 Response to "About"
September 25, 2011 at 10:36 pm
[…] The Little Red Reviewer book-blogs about SF and Fantasy. She and I have commented back and forth a bit over the past 18 months. […]
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