Walking My Talk...

... with Six Word Reviews

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Few things annoy me more than realizing I am a hypocrite, but here I am.

It all started as a friend and I were grumbling about how hard it is to get reviews. It was after the holidays and we both felt like having a good whinge.

“It’s not like it’s hard to leave a few words,” I said. “Look at the six word story Hemingway* came up with: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ Why can’t someone leave a review like that? This great book scared me sleepless.”

Then the conversation took a nasty turn.

“You should do that,” said my friend.

I thought about the last time I left a review myself. It was last week, but on average I wind up posting a review a month or less. My excuse not to do more is the time it takes. Hypocrites, meet your queen.

So, this is my goal… see if I can review every book in my e-reader by 2025. Right now my content library says I have 663 titles, and I’ve read most of them. That’s around two a day, but we are talking about a total of 12 words. Surely I can do that. If I can’t, I can certainly stop b****ing about it.

Now to see if Amazon and Goodreads will let this happen.

Here’s the first one I’ll try:

Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Freshly brewed post adventure cozy tale.

*The concept of the six-word story is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, one of the most famous American writers of the 20th century. According to literary lore, Hemingway was once challenged to write a complete story in just six words. His response was the poignant and powerful: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

This story has become a classic example of flash fiction's power to convey deep emotion and narrative in a very brief format. However, it's important to note that there is no concrete evidence that Hemingway actually wrote this story. The true origin of the six-word story remains a bit of a mystery, with the concept predating Hemingway and no clear authorship for the baby shoes story. Regardless, the tale is often used to illustrate Hemingway's mastery of brevity and his powerful storytelling style.