An Avid Reader's Thoughts On Books Written

Feedback I Have Read From Book Reviewers

And as I have said before, I read a lot. I often look at the reviews given to books that I am thinking on reading and/or purchasing. Amazon is mostly my source for this, but I have also read reviewer's comments on Barnes and Noble. As I find what I think are helpful feedback comments, I will add them here.
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A sense of natural speech patterns is absolutely essential to composing good/realistic dialogue. I know the exercise sounds ridiculous but authors, all authors, need to develop an ear for how people talk in everyday conversation and use those principles when creating their own.

Not too many people contest the general dislike of narratives that jump from one point of view to another without a page or chapter break. Many readers, myself included, find the approach confusing. It disrupts the flow of the story.

When writing on a certain population or age group, be sure the writing matches. I have recently read a book I did not want to, and could not, finish because the character narrative for what was supposed to be 20 to 25 year olds was so juvenile, I would not put the age of the characters past 16 years of age. It was so incredibly immature you could tell it was written  by a juvenile with no concept of adult behavior and maturity.

Yet another book with first person narration. I sometimes get the feeling that today's authors can't write unless they pretend they're writing a diary. It gives a very skewed view to a story.
(Let me say that I do enjoy first person POV, I do agree there is validity to the skewed view to a story. How can it not be when it's told from only one person's perspective? However, first person POV written well still tells a great story. There are those that seems story is lost and it's like a diary being written, which I think is the part of what this person is trying to relay)

Decent world building marred by poor editing and dated plot conventions.

Some authors write serials really well, and others, not so much. Series that have the same thing happening again and again, just changing the characters names and a few details on their story, but same events occur over and over, shows a huge lack of imagination and talent. Why an author would think readers want to read the same story again and again is a mystery, no pun intended. It makes for mundane writing from an obviously mundane writer. A one-trick pony, as the saying goes.

A little deviation from book reviews
From one of my favorite NYT best selling authors who writes in the paranormal/urban fantasy fiction genre - Responses to a couple questions written to them:
When we create characters, we aim for them to fill a specific role in the story. Real people are infinitely complex. Real life doesn't have to make sense. Fiction does.
Each scene in your story must advance plot and character. It varies to which degree these two aspects are present. Look at your narrative scene by scene. With every scene ask yourself, "Do I have to have this to tell the story?" If the answer is no, cut it.