sovay: (Default)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2005-09-01 02:17 am

Mipney ma, mipney ma, yoredo haneshomo

The Dybbuk in Love has received a marvelous, deeply complimentary review by JoSelle Vanderhooft in the latest issue of Reflection's Edge. I'm floored. (In many respects, this is my first formal review.) And more than that, I am professionally pleased. Because the story worked.

Through this study of his past and his culture, Clare soon finds her thoughts and dreams centered around the love-struck dybbuk, until it becomes difficult to determine which one of them is truly trying to possess the other.

And so I know: somebody else got it. I wrote the story such that someone else was able to. It's always up for grabs; the inside of my head is my own, and the inside of another's head is all theirs. I can never make a reader see or feel or taste the exact textures that the words have when I am writing them. All I can do is try. And so it feels really, really good to know that every now and then, the trick works.

And all that aside, it's just good to know that someone else liked the story, too.

[identity profile] upstart-crow.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 06:43 am (UTC)(link)
Oh I did, very much. I'm glad the review was so deeply satisfactory for you too. It's always my goal to tell the truth when I review a book (though I always try to tell it constructively, even when I didn't like certain aspects of the book/the book at all). Every now and then, I seem to get it in a way that is right, and in a way that does the author and the work justice. I'm always glad when that happens.

[identity profile] grimorie.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 12:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, what a lovely review... it makes me want to buy your book, but it seems we don't have it on shelf in this part of Asia :(( Sigh, it's too bad the dollar-peso exchange is not to my advantage, other wise, I'd order it in a second!