What makes a good book?

If you clicked this link hoping that I’d have the answers to that question, I’m sorry, but I don’t have them.

The question of what makes a book “good” and what makes a book “bad” is something that I’ve had a hard time wrestling with over the years. That’s a bit weird for someone who reviews books as a hobby, right?

Well, aye. But look… Most of us accept that, to some degree, books are subjective things. Whether we like a story can depend on our tastes, our background, our experiences, all that stuff. It’s easier, for instance, for a lot of readers to engage with a story that deals with a culture they’re familiar with. That’s something that thankfully has been challenged in recent years as fantasy publishers veer away from the western medieval. Not without some folks holding those books to different, impossible standards, mind you… but cleverer people than me have spoken on that topic.

What I want to talk about (or ramble about) revolves around confronting my own ideas of what makes a book “good”. And if it’s possible to separate my own enjoyment from my perceived quality of the craftsmanship.

That’s easier said than done, right? I mean, we all want to believe that we’re clever enough and well-read enough to know when a book is plain bad vs when it just isn’t for us. But how far does that stretch? How many times have you thought a book was the best thing since Tom Holland’s Umbrella performance, only for someone else to read it and be like, “…eh. It’s a bit shit.”?

(Sidenote: Fuck you, Marvin. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a masterpiece.)

Obviously, different people like different things. Obviously, different people will have a different idea of what makes a book good. But it’s the space between the two that has always fascinated me. Too many people have heard me rant about the subjectivity of art (I do it a lot, and at length), but it’s something that has always fascinated and infuriated me. Since I’ve been judging in a book competition for these last couple of years, it’s been on my mind even more than usual.

Let’s dive into this a little bit. For me, characterisation is probably the most important thing in a book. I couldn’t really care less about whether a character is proactive or reactive so long as there is some justification behind that. Personally speaking, that justification is often the thing that makes or breaks a book. Exploring who a character is as a person, why they are the way that they are, what they want and why they want it… I want all of that, and I need to see that on the page. I don’t like being told, “oh, Andrew’s a hothead”, I want to see Andrew lose his shit at someone and deduce that for myself. If I’m made to understand why Andrew is a hothead? Even better.¹

Not every book gives that level of depth. Honestly, not every book has to. There’s a whole debate to be had over judging a book for what it is versus judging a book for what it isn’t. That somewhat ties into judging the execution of a book based on what a reviewer guesses the author’s intentions were, but I’m getting off topic. The question I’m asking myself is… how fair is it of me to judge books by that same yardstick when they don’t put that level on emphasis on characterisation?

Think of the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers. By and large, those books are pretty slice-of-life. They aren’t really supposed to have a plot, per se, they’re almost entirely character focused. I’ve seen people ding those books for a lack of plot before, and I’ve been quietly furious because that isn’t the point of the Wayfarers series! But, hey… haven’t I done the same thing in reverse more than once? If books exist where the plot isn’t important, then can’t others exist where characterisation should be allowed to take a back seat to a bunch of cool shit happening?

And this is where I lose myself. Because I want my answer to be, “Yes, of course!”, but… If I’m honest with myself, my answer is really, “Yes, but they won’t be as good.”

I’ve been wondering a lot if there’s a difference between “taste”, and “personal philosophy”. To me, a great book absolutely requires a few things. It needs fleshed-out characters with distinct personalities and motivations, it needs the context to make those things make sense, and it needs a conflict that fits those specific characters. It also needs a narrative voice that will hold my attention and distinguish it from all the other books I read. If there’s a cool world with a bunch of funky magic shit I’ve never seen beore? That’s awesome, but it’s not a dealbreaker for me. Likewise with pretty prose — it can be a great bonus, but as long as I can follow what’s going on, I won’t really feel the lack of it.

If I have a book that has this amazingly detailed world and a whole bunch of twists and action scenes… I won’t care if I don’t care about the characters. Whether that care takes the form of love, hate, or even just vague interest. For me, it’s the characters that bring all the rest to life. It’s the characters that put everything else into context and make it actually matter. And look, I can try to divorce myself from those beliefs in order to critique a book in a vacuum (and in some cases I absolutely should), but realistically… I’m never going to be able to fully achieve that level of separation.

When I hear “taste”, I think of how some people like or dislike things like grimdark or romance, quirkiness or angst, epic secondary worlds or contemporary fantasy, etc. I go back and forth on this, but for me, “taste” is something that seems a little more surface-level than the actual personal beliefs as to which constitutes quality in a piece of art. Those two things are somewhat separate in my mind.

But are they, really?

If these beliefs differ between readers… then really, that sounds pretty close to a difference in taste to me. Are our personal opinions on perceived quality just a measure of taste that we hold dearer, or can put an argument to? Can a consensus on what constitutes quality in a story really be reached? Or is that simply an appeal to a majority? With different majorities queried for the contexts of general readerships, award listings, and different social circles? Is such an average of opinions worth any more than that of an individual? Or your own?

Honestly? Who the fuck knows.

I sure as fuck don’t, and that’s not from a lack of asking the question, or from hearing all the answers that other people have given me.

I often wonder how much of what we think of as “good” storytelling is taught. Looking back to what some call the “golden age” of speculative fiction, with its love of the competent man archetype, I wonder how many Mary Sue or Gary Stu accusations those books would face if they were first published in the current climate. Of course, it’s hardly a massive revelation that tastes change over time. But there’s that word “tastes”, again. Did the critics of the time accept that their awards were a matter of taste? Or did they see them as recognition for (what they thought were) the objectively best books of the era?

In any case, these differences in opinions, tastes, beliefs… whatever they are… they aren’t going anywhere. To some extent, these questions don’t matter too much. This is just quibbling over terminology.

But I think it’s interesting to consider. I kinda have to, because at this point I’ve wasted far too much time thinking about it.

¹ — As an example of my thought process here, think Regal from the Farseer trilogy vs Kyle from Liveship Traders. A lot of Regal’s actions can come off as a bit cartoonish seeing as he kind of just is a prick. The reasons behind his prickishness are buried in throwaway lines, or require thought about the context of his upbringing. On the other hand, Kyle’s upbringing and ingrained beliefs are given more of a focus the Liveship books, so he feels much more solid as a result. When Kyle behaves like a piece of shit, we know exactly why, and sometimes we can even see it coming. Kyle’s motivations and internal justifications are explored a lot more, and for me at least, that makes for a much better reading experience.