So, I'm trying some new things

To catch up real quick, in the past four years I've had two kids. Really that's all I can remember. Because of previously mentioned kids. I'm sure some things have happened, but they all truly fade to the background.

Currently I've got a couple of things going on as I try to find meaningful ways to contribute to the world around me. Since I have two young kids and a full time job I find I don't have much time for anything and I don't have much energy either, physical or mental, so I focus on smaller scale things I can do.
Like writing a reminder for people to register to vote on my car's rear window. Seriously, vote.

I've also been trying to contribute to an online "village" I found by 'accident' aka via serendipity. These folks are awesome and you can find the results of this village effort on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/themominars/) and on the web (https://www.themominars.com/). I've been trying my hand at writing, interviewing people, and reviewing things. It's been pretty awesome and there are so many great contributors to the project. So far I've written one piece on my experience with trying to find the unicorn known as "self care" and I've done one book review (An Eye For An Eye) and an interview with the author Caroline Fardig. I'm currently prepping for my next review and interview for The Mominars and hopefully I'll have that done soon. I'm also reviewing things outside the Mominars platform to get in some more practice on Amazon and on NetGalley. Practice makes perfect, right?

So maybe that's where I should leave this: my experience with reviewing. How I approach book reviews. I approach book reviews cautiously, like an animal in the wild. I don't want to write a book report. Boring. I don't want to write a synopsis, that's already there on the book's digital listing or back jacket. A review is about your opinion and experience as the reader. I also don't want to give away any plot points. So, what to do? I've read a few guides and this is what I've managed to adopt so far:
-title and author. There are a lot of books out there with the same title. Just look up "fire and fury" and you'll get a couple of very different results. Authors are important.
-Could you relate to the character (if told in the first person)? I read for escapism, so if I'm fighting with being able to understand the actions and motivations of the person from whose point of view the story is being told, well then it's not a very good escape.
- What about a story/writing is important to you? Turns out I care about writing devices and scene transitions and dialogue organization. I'm probably not the only one. What you care about is probably not a unique concern of yours either, so write about it. I recently read a short read purely to have something to do while the baby was going to sleep and I was trapped and if I had seen a review that talked about all the peeves of mine that this set off I would have saved myself the trouble. And vice versa, you could really help an author out by singing their praises.
OK, now I'm rambling even to myself.
Next up, a bath bomb company review. Because why not?