which hereby makes me a failure/outcast/total dink/etc. It’s okay. I’ve made my peace with it. However, I feel compelled to mention that I actually have read the 13 Canadian books—I blogged the first 11, and have since read two more. I finished #12, Katherine Govier’s The Ghost Brush, last week and, though she may have taken her leave of the author, Oei has yet to depart from my mind.  I then devoured book #13, Kathleen Winter’s Annabel, over the weekend, not because I still had delusions of completing the challenge, but because I couldn’t put it down. I was sorely tempted to bail on dinner plans with friends in order to keep reading, but my (much, much) better half would not have been cool with that…which is why I attempted to read with one eye while applying mascara to the other, which resulted in a mild injury and further delayed our departure… still, that blurry, extra half-paragraph? Totally worth it.

So, why, I’m sure you’re wondering, didn’t I just zip off reviews of the above titles and cue the applause for my completed Challenge? Well, the answer is simple, though it came as a complete surprise to me: I don’t like reviewing. I hate it, actually.

When I finish reading a book for the first time, all I can say for certain is whether I like it. To figure out why I like it (or not), and then to be able to demonstrate my reasons thoroughly and thoughtfully, I have to read it a second time and employ things like post-its and highlighters. Though I read quickly, I think and write slowly. If I’m going to write a review at all, I have to be willing to invest this kind of time because I can’t stand to write a half-assed one—I think that is disrespectful, which is why most of my ‘reviews’ for the Challenge are not really reviews so much as they are fluffy little appreciations/reflections that conclude with an exhortation to read the novel in question. Unless I’m being paid to do it — and I do not think anyone should pay me to do it, ever, for further reasons I’ll get to later —I’d sooner use the time to read another book.

However, the reason I hate to review is not the potential investment of time and effort. I love analyzing things, and used to enjoy writing papers—why, the very idea of getting out those highlighters fills me with a kind of nerdy glee.  What I hate is the prospect figuring out whether the particular reasons why I like a book are even related to what makes it “work” or not, of crossing my arms and pronouncing the book good, or terrible, or good but flawed in some crucial way, or whatever.

Being asked to write a review gives me the exact same feeling I get when asked for directions. I think people approach me because I look like I know where I’m going. (I always walk as though I know where I’m going, even when I don’t: sauntering in that dazed, uncertain way, the way tourists or teenagers in the mall walk, is just not my style.)  In the rare cases when I do indeed know the way to their destination, I do my best, which generally involves wild hand gestures and overly-wordy descriptions of intersections because I’ve forgotten the street names.  When they drive away, I worry that they won’t make it and it will be my fault for giving off the impression I might be trusted, because I am not.

Yes, I read a lot. Yes, I have an English degree. Yes, I work at a lit mag. Yes, I like to write and talk about books. I can understand how these things give me the appearance of being able to write a review. But I’m just … not. I’m just not prepared to evaluate the book and declare it good/bad/etc — which, to my mind, is what a proper review must do, and what distinguishes a review from another other kind of writing about a book. All I am prepared to do is say I love this book/I hate this book/I loved this book up until page 8/etc because this is the extent of what I know for sure.

I love, I mean really, really love, lots of things that are just plain terrible by objective standards. I watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation several times during the holidays every year, and I laugh every time. I mean, every time I watch it, not just the first time I watch it each year. I refuse to apologize for this. I doubt it, but I have to admit that there is a distinct possibility that something I love is the literary equivalent of Chevy Chase.  And I’m cool with that, too. I don’t want to give other people directions.  I want to be me, and that is it.

If someone reads a book because I said I loved it, that’s fine—even if she hates it, that doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel at all responsible.  But I hate to think that someone might read a novel because I said it was good, or vice versa.

And that is why I won’t be reviewing books here on the blog. Or taking the Challenge again, though I’m glad I did this time. Rant over. Ahhh.

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