Caroline O'Donoghue: The List - four thoughts on reviews

Columnist - Caroline O'Donoghue in London.

Reviews are a thorny beast. Picture your last performance review at work. Now imagine that your performance review isn’t being carried out by your line manager, but a total stranger.

Now imagine thousands of strangers, all commenting on your performance, and all of these comments are available to the public and occasionally printed in the local paper. That’s kind of what reviews feel like. You have to constantly remind yourself, as an author, that reviewers – whether they are a blogger, an Amazon review, or a big-name journalist – are responding to a specific piece of work, and not to you.