“A luminous masterpiece!” “Profoundly moving!” “Exhilaratingly exuberant!”
These days, books come out with all kinds of adulatory blurbs on the cover. It takes five minutes just to read the cover of the book to decide if you want to read the inside of the book itself.
Here to help: THE BOOK BLURB DICTIONARY — a quick guide to understanding what all those rave reviews really mean.
“An adventure” — characters spend a lot of time outside, doing things that seem both fun and exhausting.
“Beautiful” — this book describes a lot of scenery.
“Chekhovian” — nobody in this book talks much and nobody resolves their issues.
“Compassionate” — some people in this book aren’t likable, but you feel sorry for them anyway.
“Darkly comic” — someone dies in this book, but it’s ok because it’s funny.
“Deep” — people in this book spend a lot of time thinking about themselves and having epiphanies.
“Dickensian” — some people in this book are really, really poor. Other people take advantage of them.
“Engaging” — this book is nonfiction but we promise you won’t even notice.
“Eerie” — weird creepy stuff happens and goes unexplained for the entirety of the book.
“Fast-paced” — this book will probably be a movie in a few months.
“Haunting” — something bad is happening or will happen or has already happened in this book.
“Instant classic” — book clubs will probably read this book.
“Irreverent” — there are a lot of swear words in this book.
“Kerouacian” — at some point in this book, two guys will drive somewhere together. And get drunk.
“Mysteries of the human heart” — people in this book repress their feelings and do strange things.
“Poignant” — this book will give you the feels. Oh what feels!
“Postmodern” — hipsters will like this book.
“Raw” — this book has violence, sex or drug and alcohol abuse. Or all three.
“Remarkable” — we didn’t expect this book to be good but hey, it actually is.
“Satire” — this book makes fun of things.
“Searing satire” — this book makes fun of things we generally like.
“Tolstoyan” — this book is long and detailed.
“Virtuosic” — the author writes from the point of view of a lot of different characters in this book.
“Wacky” — at least one character in this book is batshit crazy, and everyone goes along with what they’re doing.
“Wicked” — people do mean things to each other in this book but it’s kind of funny.
The Book Blurb Dictionary will be added to periodically for the benefit of book nerds everywhere.
