About the Blog and My Book Review Policy

“The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?”
-Yann Martel (The Life of Pi)

 
 
Hello! Mabuhay! 안녕 하세요! Suilad! Thank you for visiting The Girl Who Read and Other Stories.

My name is Meann. If you’re not sure how to pronounce that–it’s likely non-Filipinos will get confused–that’s okay. But I am not a mean girl. I am an Engineer, freelance writer, and–as you can probably already tell–a bookworm.

I’ve been blogging for years but have been wandering like a cyberspace gypsy from one blogging platform to another. But I feel at home here at WordPress now…despite the constant image upload quality battle that I have to wage!

Although this is primarily a book blog, this is still my personal journal. So while I will write mostly about books because reading is my passion, the title does include “Other Stories”, so I will also write about things that interest me, like movies, music, TV shows, Korean dramas, and other random stuff. I will try to fangirl in moderation but it will be a half-hearted attempt at best.

Book Review Policy:

I’m not a literary critic; I’m just a book lover who happens to love writing about books. The reviews that I write for this blog are my personal thoughts and feelings about what I read. Sometimes there will be serious discussions, sometimes there will be silly commentary, and sometimes there will only be theme song recommendations (“Scoring the Book”). The posts are not meant to be formal critical analyses; the New York Times reviewers already have that covered.

When given the chance, I read different kinds of books, but I gravitate more toward fantasy, science fiction, young adult, mysteries, and alternate/secret history. I am also making an effort to read more books written by Filipino authors.

To get a better idea of the kind of books I read, you can check the following: reviews I’ve posted in this blog, reviews I submitted for publication to a local news website, or my Goodreads profile.

I’m surprised that I’m actually getting requests to review particular books considering this incarnation of my blog is relatively new. Some of these requests were even sent in by the authors themselves. Thank you for sending in links to your books and for your kind comments about this blog.

I am happy to receive requests to review books that fall under any of the categories I’ve mentioned above, but I cannot promise to accept them all. I’m going to try to get through the requests when I can because I still have a rather intimidating To Read pile–which includes required reading for my book club and professional writing assignments–so I apologize in advance if I do not reply or reply too late.

For review copies, sending e-books would be more cost-effective and convenient if your book is available in MOBI, EPB, or PDF format. If you must send printed copies, that’s okay too, but please note that I live in the Philippines, so shipping cost must be considered.

When I accept a request and a review copy, barring any personal or Muggle work-related delays (I only blog for the fun of it), I try to post reviews within a week after I finish reading a book.

You can reach me at: thegirlwhoread(at)gmail(dot)com

Last Policy Update: May 2013