Review Policy and Contact

Contact:

Currently excepting ARCs via NetGalley. I’m also reviewing books I’ve personally purchased. I review ebooks by Indie/trad/hybrid authors and am not paid for my reviews. You may contact me at throwthisbookatme[at]gmail[dot]com.

Policy:

I review books I buy myself and those provided to me by publishers or authors. All reviews are listed by title under the Book Reviews and Interviews tab. This isn’t always up-to-date, but it includes every review except those for the last 1-2 months.

My ratings:

• 5 stars: found myself thinking about this book days after I read it; writing, characters, and plot worked for me; there was a subjective something special in it for me.
• 4 stars: solidly entertaining story; writing, characters, and plot mostly worked for me; there was something that kept me from loving it, but overall, a strong read
• 3 stars: would read this writer again, even if this story wasn’t everything I hoped; there was something with the writing, characters, or plot that kept being an issue for me; usually strong writing, but just not for me
• 2 stars: a serious problem with either characters, writing, or plot; misrepresented the genre or basic premise of the novel; would probably not read this author again unless by strong recommendation
• 1 star: did not finish; major flaw in characters, writing, or plot; would not read this author again

My reviews and tips for nice emails:

• I’ve gotten A LOT of emails recently! This is exciting but overwhelming. When you send an email, don’t tell me how cheap/free/whatever your book is. That’s not a selling point.
• PLEASE add a link to your book on goodreads and/or amazon in your email. It’s not fun to go hunt down books, and I can judge what I want to read easily when I see how you’ve presented it on your social media sites.
• I do email back when I’m interested.
• No book is for everyone, and there’s a lot out there to read.
• I want to point out genuinely interesting parts of a book. I tend to focus on the good over the bad, and I love the moments where I want to shout or clap or swear or giggle.
• That said, nothing is perfect, and I’ll say what didn’t work for me. I honestly don’t post a lot of my 1 stars because those hurt, and I consider them DNFs most of the time, too, because I ended up skimming so much of the material. I also try and be decerning enough not to pick books that I think I’m going to 1 star.

Genres

Preferences updated 10/3/16:

(All genres are YA/NA/adult unless otherwise noted. I will review novels with cross-genre appeal.)

Fantasy:

• Contemporary fantasy–what I want to review the most (magical realism, urban, or whatever as long as it takes place in a current setting)
• Humorous fantasy
• Fairytale retellings
• Urban fantasy/contemporary fantasy –favorite genre

Paranormal:

• If the romance is steamy, don’t send.
• Shape-shifters
• Odd monsters (and no, mermaids don’t count here)
• Myth centric paranormal (based on myths so there might be an overlap with retellings)

Sci-Fi:

• Space operas
• Books with lots of aliens (is there a genre to that? Alien centric)
• Speculative sci-fi