The door is knocked.

In comes a chubbyish man, probably around twenty-eight, which incidentally is
my age. He wears a gray long-sleeve shirt and black jeans. His face is flushed, brow
sweating, and eyes bloodshot. The most striking thing is he walks uneasily with his
hands covering his groin.

I stand up to greet him. “Casey McLong, I presume. Come on and take a seat.”

“You must be The Breaker.” He lifts one hand from his groin and accepts my
greeting.

“I am Melanie Perkiss, but just call me Mel,” I say.

Still fearful his bladder could be full, I watch carefully how he will sit. Seriously,
evil witches’ spells can cause just about anything.

Casey slumps onto the chair. He is distressed but not in real physical pain, and
that gladdens me, but only slightly.

“So, tell me what happened?”

“I just woke up this morning.” His breath hitches. “And I went to pee, then to my
utter horror…” He leans the elbow of one arm on my table and starts to massage his
brow.

“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to say exactly. Did you pee, though?”
“Yes, I did, but through a tiny fibrous thing left.”

Dear Jesus, what a problem. “Uh, did you try a clinic?” I say, even though I know
doctors can’t help victims of magic. If his organs have vanished for sure, no amount of
X-raying or ultrasound scanning will bring them back.

“Didn’t see the need.” He swallows hard. “What could an MD possibly do? Patch
me up with a donation?”

I smile wryly. I have once heard of donated genitals, but still wonder how an
operation to patch them on could work out. Honestly, it’s a stretch.

“You want me to show you?” He motions at his pants.

That, in fact, was what I was coming to. “Yes, please,” I say.

Checking for myself would help prove that said organs were really missing rather
than just invisible. “The restroom is off a corridor to the back. Is that where you prefer?
We could go together.”

My office is not outfitted for seminude examinations. I have my inoperable
window blinds almost fully open to confirm.

Casey searches around, as if to satisfy himself that there is no one else in the
office. I figure ensuring his full privacy in the confines of a washroom is not among his
top concerns.

“Let me just lock, then,” I say as I see him reach for his belt.

I dart to the door and click the bolt, then come back. “Okay, show me.”

He unclasps his belt, pulls down his fly, then lets his pants open into a wide V.
He wears a pair of white Calvin Klein underpants with an orange waistband. There is
nothing there underneath when they go down, too.

“Oh my God.’’ I clutch my chin. This can’t be possible. This man is completely
ruined. How could he ever live like that? It’s ugly. UGLY, UGLY, UGLY.

It's been a while, and Casey still stands before me with his pants down. I’m too
stunned to tell him to zip up.

Seriously, I hate to see anguish on people’s faces—my clients’ even more. It
causes the spirits within me to roil, plunging me into a sea of depression. I sometimes
catch myself having to hold back tears, and right now, I have no idea what to do to bring
an immediate smile to this guy’s face.

Anyway, it won’t help to grieve. Something must be worked out, and my mind
jumps into gear.

“Right, dress up,” I say, but calmly, “and take your seat.”

“Thank you.”

As he does that, something I hadn’t noticed flashes into my eyes. It’s uncommon
among men, but this guy is different: he sports a gold band on his finger!
A more feminine part of me wants to ask, but I know I mustn’t pry. Even so, I still
blurt, “Oh, you got that.”

A sharp stab mars Casey's face. “Engaged,” he mutters. “Wedding, this Sunday.”

Now I get why this whole thing is killing him more. This problem shouldn’t have
occurred when he was looking forward to such a blissful time. I try to imagine something
like it happening to my boyfriend. That would be like the world coming to an end for us,
and I don’t know if I could recover from such a crisis…

Being paid to read books is every booklover’s dream job. What other job title inspires daydreams of being cosied up with a cup of coffee or tea and a book cradled in your hands?
 
Like many dream jobs being a paid book reviewer looks a little better from the outside than what it really is.
 
There’s a scene in C.S. Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawntreader where the crew picks up a man in the ocean near a mysterious, black-shrouded island. Everyone is excited when this man tells them that dreams come true on the island, until he clarifies that it’s not daydreams but the dreams we have when asleep that become real. Then everyone but Reepicheep runs to turn that ship around.
 
Working as a professional book reviewer is a little like that. I’ve been reviewing books professionally for a little over three years now and the most common misperception people have of this job is that you earn money by reading books you like all the time. There’s also often some confusion over the differences between a critical review and the majority of reviews published on blogs, Goodreads, Amazon, etc.
 
I will address both of these points in this post as well as relate several pros and cons to being a book reviewer.
 

Professional book reviewers are paid to provide critical assessment of novels in their genres of expertise regardless of whether they personally enjoy the book or not. The times one gets to live the dream of being paid to read amazing books are less commonplace than you might think.
 
The choices of books to read are limited, if you have a choice at all. An editor assigns some of the books I’m paid to review to me, while others I’ve chosen to read from a list of available books. It’s great when all the books on that list sound amazing, but the truth is that there are times where I just pick the best sounding book from a lacklustre bunch and read it for the money.
 
To be clear: a reviewer always has the right to refuse a book. I, however, prefer to save that right for the truly dire or offensive books that might enter my work TBR rather than veto every book that simply isn’t knock your socks off amazing. Some platforms are stricter about this than others are, however, so an unfamiliarity with fae or vampire canon might be a good enough reason to pass on a book but bad writing and characterisation or a boring, predictable plot isn’t.
 
It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes you do encounter hate speech or graphic elements in books. Most of the time this is due to naïve or clumsy depictions of events that a beta or sensitivity reader should’ve caught but there are times when you’ll read a book and discover it’s so filled with bigotry and thinly disguised thematic propaganda that you simply can’t anymore. You can veto a book you find personally offensive or triggering and in some cases, report the book to your editors.
 
But it’s not all dire and gloomy. You get free books to read and I’ve discovered so many new favourite books and authors from working as a book reviewer. Many, if not all, of these treasures would have slipped beneath my radar if it weren’t for this job.
 

Apart from good writing skills and command of the language you write your reviews in, it’s critical that you understand writing techniques and are familiar with all the common tropes and canon in your genre. You need to know what readers will expect in order to analyse whether a book will meet those expectations or not.
 
Your personal preferences take a backseat in critical reviews. There’s as little room for gushing about a book as there is for slamming it. What you might feel about special snowflakes, enemies to lovers romances, and the Heroes Journey means little when your job is to assess how well an author implements these elements within the genre they write in.  The opinions you express in your review have to be based on facts you can quote, if necessary. Editors will query a review (or parts of a review) if it veers too much into either giddy praise or ranting hate.  Constructive criticism is the key here, even for truly dire books.
 
Reading elements of story or plot you don’t particularly enjoy does have its plus side: it’s made me a better writer. It’s taught me that all too often the difference between a good book and a great one comes down to interesting descriptions, character depth, and unique implementation of plot tropes and structures. Likewise, the reason a book doesn’t work often boils down to lacklustre or sloppy execution.
 

Something many people don’t seem to appreciate is that book reviews have deadlines. The average deadline is two weeks, which is rather generous if you’re a fast reader with only the one book to read, but those are rare circumstances. Most of the time, I have at least three books to read and review within any given fortnight with a page count of 250 to 350 pages each. That’s a lot when you still have other things you need to do on a daily basis.  
 
There is a certain amount of flexibility with the workload but since you’re paid by the book, you generally have to squeeze in more reading time if you want to make a reasonable amount of extra cash from book reviewing. This job isn’t a gold mine. Although the pay scale varies from one company to the next, there are generally four categories: $1 books, $10 books, $25 books, and $50 books. This may be subject to availability (again, it depends on the company you work for) so when the going is good, you go like the crackers so you can get to the next book.
 
The way you receive payment also varies. PayPal might be an option but the most common form of payment is cheques in the mail. This might cause problems if you live in a different country. International post can take a long time to reach its destination, and an inefficient local postal service can lengthen this journey.
 
Since you’re paid by the book, you have to read fast. Insanely fast sometimes, so fast that your brain feels like mush because you’ve charged through thirteen relevant plot points, six moments of character development, and a whole wheelbarrow full of notable writing style, thematic development, foreshadowing, and general characterisation. This is easier to do if the book is great but great books only come around once in every twenty average books you read. Because most review books are ebooks, screen glare induced eyestrain is also an issue.  This is especially true for PDF books formatted to A4 page size instead of standard book page sizes—an issue that comes up most often with indie published books.
 

I work with two separate companies, but because of their respective rules and policies regarding reviewers I will not be entering into specifics about either. People often think I must’ve had a foot in the door somewhere in order to get work as a book reviewer but that isn’t the case.
 
I searched for book reviewer jobs on google and pinterest and then I scoured through the websites of all the companies in the search results for openings, studied their review format, and took note of which editors were responsible for the genres I review in. Some places will request a CV/resume but for others it will suffice to submit a review in the format they use. I suggest the review you submit be of a recently published or well-known book in your genre, and take note of any competitions or awards the review companies host as they may need extra staff during competition season to cover the volume of submissions they receive.

A sci-fi Wizard of Oz retelling that twists the original tale in all the right ways.
 
Instead of a tornado, Dorothy is sucked into a white hole while pursuing Mirus, a mystical being that feeds on the remains of stars. It’s believed that the substance Mirus is composed of contains healing properties, and this may be the only chance to save Dorothy’s cousin, Adrian, from deteriorating further due to the genetic condition he and Dorothy share.
 
I never would’ve thought Oz in space was something I needed in my life until I encountered this book. Hercules has done an amazing job of reimagining Oz as a war-torn planet and Kansas as a space station but it’s the depth she brings to these characters that make this novel stand out.
 
We’re all familiar with the cowardly lion, the brainless scarecrow, and the heartless tin man. Hercules retains the defining characteristics of these characters in Reo, Darius, and Kevvan, but adds a level of depth that makes them come to life in a way that puts the movie originals (I’ve only seen the movie) to shame. Instead of relying on characterisation based on physical features, such as Reo being a cyborg and Kevvan a hellioncat, Hercules has built a convincing psychological element into the characters to elucidate their cowardice, heartlessness, etc. Toto also happens to be adorable as a robot dog.
 
I adore a reverse harem romance and the development of emotional and physical attraction between Dorothy and her boys is so good, like, guilty pleasure fan fiction level good.
 
I really would’ve liked to find out more about Dorothy’s medical condition but not knowing didn’t detract at all from my enjoyment of this book. Although the end provides a satisfying conclusion to the main plot it does leave off with a tantalising cliff-hanger that’ll make it tough to wait for the next Oz in Space book.
 
Book received through Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.