A group of local women writers, including me, have established a writer’s book club. The intent is to meet once a month to discuss an agreed book from a writer’s perspective.
My mum was a voracious reader and raised me the same. She read me stories every night and taught me to read before I went to school. Into adulthood, many of our conversations revolved around what we’d been reading and we’d often mail favourite books back and forth across the country. Like her, I’m a fast reader—often too fast. Sometimes, I have to go back and read a paragraph two or three times because my eyes skip over the words too fast and I miss stuff.
I used to read anything and everything but have become more focussed as I’ve aged. These days, I’ve given up struggling through hefty tomes of literary fiction and only read books that interest me. Most of the time that means I read speculative fiction—but not always. If I don’t enjoy a book, I don’t bother finishing it. There are far too many great stories out there for me to waste my time on something that doesn’t work for me. But, I’ve never been very good at figuring out what I didn’t like and why.
Even after I began to write, I still read for the entertainment and not to understand craft or to critique technique. It’s only been in the last decade that I’ve learned to read with a more purposeful eye. In part, I learned through having my own work critiqued and then returning the favour. Later, I helped edit and proof read the annual anthology put together by my local writers’ group, and in 2025, I took up the opportunity to be a judge for the British Fantasy Awards. In 2026, I’ll be a judging convenor for Aotearoa New Zealand’s inaugural Te Pae Tawhiti Awards for speculative fiction.
Books that I love are often written from an odd perspective, they have well-written and engaging characters and enough world-building for me to be able to envision scenes. The story-line keeps me engaged and often twists and turns in unexpected ways. I don’t mind tropes, but I like to see them from a different view. I like the odd and off-kilter. Extra points for themes that challenge the patriarchy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, unfettered capitalism and/or confront ultra-conservativism.
Things that make my eyes glaze over and distract me are clunky and overwritten prose, massive chunks of information dumping, and extended descriptions of settings that don’t serve to advance the plot or contribute to a characters development. I now know that these are what I skim over when I’m reading for pleasure. I want action and dialogue to tell me the story, not extensive unbroken blocks of unrelenting text. If the character is in a forest, I want to experience the forest, I don’t want to stand outside the forest margins while it’s described to me in painful detail.
I dislike stories where a ‘thing’ happens, but nothing and no one changes as a result—what’s the point? Even flash fiction needs a purpose. Not long ago, I read a short story by a well-known and much-loved author. The words sparkled and glittered and the descriptions were rich and generous. But nothing fucking happened! I read it twice to be sure I wasn’t missing something. Nope, it was just a bunch of pretty words with no story or character arc—less satisfying than candy-floss.
Two other things that annoy me are unadulterated filtering (I don’t want to be told what the character saw or felt, I want to experience it), and an over reliance on adverbs instead of strong verbs (I’d be delighted to I never see the word “suddenly” ever again). I read the latest novel from one of my favourite authors last month and flinched at every adverb that told me what was happening instead of showing me. Sometimes even our hero’s let us down!
Learning to read critically means that I now understand what causes me to wince at words, skim over chunks of text or put a book down. I’m looking forward to a deep-read of our first book for book club and to hearing from others about their thoughts on the same book.
My mum was a voracious reader and raised me the same. She read me stories every night and taught me to read before I went to school. Into adulthood, many of our conversations revolved around what we’d been reading and we’d often mail favourite books back and forth across the country. Like her, I’m a fast reader—often too fast. Sometimes, I have to go back and read a paragraph two or three times because my eyes skip over the words too fast and I miss stuff.
I used to read anything and everything but have become more focussed as I’ve aged. These days, I’ve given up struggling through hefty tomes of literary fiction and only read books that interest me. Most of the time that means I read speculative fiction—but not always. If I don’t enjoy a book, I don’t bother finishing it. There are far too many great stories out there for me to waste my time on something that doesn’t work for me. But, I’ve never been very good at figuring out what I didn’t like and why.
Even after I began to write, I still read for the entertainment and not to understand craft or to critique technique. It’s only been in the last decade that I’ve learned to read with a more purposeful eye. In part, I learned through having my own work critiqued and then returning the favour. Later, I helped edit and proof read the annual anthology put together by my local writers’ group, and in 2025, I took up the opportunity to be a judge for the British Fantasy Awards. In 2026, I’ll be a judging convenor for Aotearoa New Zealand’s inaugural Te Pae Tawhiti Awards for speculative fiction.
Books that I love are often written from an odd perspective, they have well-written and engaging characters and enough world-building for me to be able to envision scenes. The story-line keeps me engaged and often twists and turns in unexpected ways. I don’t mind tropes, but I like to see them from a different view. I like the odd and off-kilter. Extra points for themes that challenge the patriarchy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, unfettered capitalism and/or confront ultra-conservativism.
Things that make my eyes glaze over and distract me are clunky and overwritten prose, massive chunks of information dumping, and extended descriptions of settings that don’t serve to advance the plot or contribute to a characters development. I now know that these are what I skim over when I’m reading for pleasure. I want action and dialogue to tell me the story, not extensive unbroken blocks of unrelenting text. If the character is in a forest, I want to experience the forest, I don’t want to stand outside the forest margins while it’s described to me in painful detail.
I dislike stories where a ‘thing’ happens, but nothing and no one changes as a result—what’s the point? Even flash fiction needs a purpose. Not long ago, I read a short story by a well-known and much-loved author. The words sparkled and glittered and the descriptions were rich and generous. But nothing fucking happened! I read it twice to be sure I wasn’t missing something. Nope, it was just a bunch of pretty words with no story or character arc—less satisfying than candy-floss.
Two other things that annoy me are unadulterated filtering (I don’t want to be told what the character saw or felt, I want to experience it), and an over reliance on adverbs instead of strong verbs (I’d be delighted to I never see the word “suddenly” ever again). I read the latest novel from one of my favourite authors last month and flinched at every adverb that told me what was happening instead of showing me. Sometimes even our hero’s let us down!
Learning to read critically means that I now understand what causes me to wince at words, skim over chunks of text or put a book down. I’m looking forward to a deep-read of our first book for book club and to hearing from others about their thoughts on the same book.
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