Criticism’s Sting: The Author Curtis Sittenfeld on Book Reviews – The New York Times

Criticism’s Sting: The Author Curtis Sittenfeld on Book Reviews (Published 2016)

The novelist describes how she reacts to unsparing reviews and has come to take criticism less personally: “Sometimes fate smiles on you and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/books/criticisms-sting-the-author-curtis-sittenfeld-on-book-reviews.html

I think of reviews being mapped on a graph with four quadrants, and I’ll read the ones that are smart and positive, smart and negative, or dumb and positive (hey, all our egos need a little sustenance!). But there’s no point in reading a dumb, negative review