Book Review Blogs

[FictionLost]

I've been reviewing books in different blogs for a while and every place I review at there is always a different criteria. And everywhere I go I feel that I have to change my style a bit and look at different aspects of the books. So my question is how do you feel about book reviews blogs? Do you like to have a more professional review where the blogger judges the book based on things like style, foreshadowing, theme, etc or would you rather have a more casual reviewer where they mention what they thought was good or bad?
Also if you read book review blogs when do you generally start following along when there is a big(ish) following or a new almost blog with an almost none existential following .
Personally I think people tend to follow blogs when there is a big following and most of the smaller ones (no matter how interesting) tend to get ignored

 

[sparkchaser]

Aside from the blogs here, generally speaking I don't read book review blogs. If I am interested in a book, I will read the Amazon reviews or ask Stewart.

 

[Landslide]

I've been reviewing books in different blogs for a while and every place I review at there is always a different criteria. And everywhere I go I feel that I have to change my style a bit and look at different aspects of the books. So my question is how do you feel about book reviews blogs? Do you like to have a more professional review where the blogger judges the book based on things like style, foreshadowing, theme, etc or would you rather have a more casual reviewer where they mention what they thought was good or bad?
Also if you read book review blogs when do you generally start following along when there is a big(ish) following or a new almost blog with an almost none existential following.
Personally I think people tend to follow blogs when there is a big following and most of the smaller ones (no matter how interesting) tend to get ignored

That one wouldn't happen to be yours, would it?
Answering your question, I follow a lot of book blogs (mostly portuguese ones) and I really don't care about their number of followers. Whenever I discover a new book blog I browse around for a while and if I like what I see, I start following it. I never look at the number of followers, in fact there are a few very popular book blogs that I don't follow cause I don't identify with them.
The question here is that popular blogs are most likely easier to come across than less popular ones. You can always comment on popular book blogs asking people to come visit yours but, to be honest, that irritates me a little.
That being said I'm going to check yours now.

 

[Peder]

My time for actual reading has dwindled so much lately that I rarely take the time anymore to look at (or write) book review blogs. I keep an eye out for comments and recommendations from knowledgeable readers I have come to know on the various literary forums I visit and, then, if I am thinking of buying, I look at some of the reviews on amazon or the writeups on wikipedia. Then I buy more books than I can possibly read.
Regarding the relative importance of literary style versus plot, I am interested in an overall satisfying read, and that can come from the story or the manner of telling it, or perferrably both combined.

 

[FictionLost]

@Landslide, is mine and I know the reviewers at the other two.
@sparkchaser, But what do you look for in a review of a book.
@Peder, On a completely random note House of Leaves gets good around the middle where the writing style gets annoying.
The problem I have with most reviews is that they either seem like a cheap analysis of the book or something like "It sucked." I've always felt that a more casual style of reviewing is both more interesting to read and write. Lately I've been trying to write reviews in ten to twenty minutes and not change it afterward to make it more like something I would do for my literature classes.