Three and a Half Stars

You’re not reading this. You might have paused if they’d allowed me that thumbnail reproduction of the book’s cover; or maybe even a black and white shot of the author – pull back her hair and lose the specs, she could look quite presentable. Or if they’d given me more words or a better position on the page. But really I’ve done this to myself. With three and a half stars I was always going to be a ‘right-at-the-bottom-tucked-in-the-crease’ man.

Three and a half stars mean that I could type 350 swear words; I could curse Allah; I could issue death threats; I could do it all in rhyming couplets and my editor wouldn’t receive a single complaint. The fact that I took this novel home; that I read it on the tube; that, before I went to sleep at night, I folded down the corner of a page to keep my place; that I laughed and frowned and gasped and cried when it was demanded of me; that I got to know its people and its rooms; that I read it carefully and that it earned every star in its little constellation doesn’t matter to you.

What you want is love or hate. A book you can’t live without or can’t live with. Well there are other faces for that. I see them when I come to hand in my copy on a Tuesday. We’ve not quite succumbed to email submissions yet. And I’m grateful – really I am – it gets me out of the flat and away from my poor books for a while. The other reviewers don’t notice me of course; I’m not one to stand out. I doubt my editor could pick me out of line up. I’m the eternally innocent man; the eternal stand-in.

Like this little book, where I found some comfort for a time. I enjoyed myself. It was OK. I’ve let you down. I would say that I’m sorry, but you’re not reading this. You’ve already forgotten me. And this novel that was good enough, but not quite good enough.