Reviews


Greetings, and thank you for visiting streetliterature.blogspot.com.

** STREETLITERATURE.BLOGSPOT.COM
IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR REVIEWS AT THIS TIME**

As this is a blog primarily for an educator audience, book reviews are written for the purpose of readers advisory and collection development in public, school, and academic libraries.

The genre that I review is called "street lit" or "urban fiction" or "hip hop lit" or "hood books" or "ghetto lit." I am most interested to review fiction or non-fiction (adult and young adult) that is "something new" for street lit and has engaging reading and writing quality. If you feel that your book fits this genre, feel free to contact me to arrange for a review. When I say "arrange for a review" I mean that you have to email me to get a mailing address as to where you can send your manuscript, galley, or advanced reader's copy (ARC).  I do not guarantee a review of any books received.

Because I am committed to seeing this wonderful genre grow and mature in a positive direction, I am not interested in reviewing books that have profane words in the title, or book covers that represent women and men in a negative light. In earlier years these approaches were effective to attract readership, but nowadays, the most successful books no longer have to do this.

I do not review urban erotica, urban fantasy, chick lit, sistah lit, lad lit, urban christian fiction or e-books. However, I am open to reviewing speculative fiction and magical realism titles (adult and young adult) that are primarily set in lower-income, urban locations.

My reviews for novels, epistolaries, poetry, memoirs/biographies, picture books, graphic novels, reference books, general non-fiction ... are usually between 250-500 words; will include a book cover image, author, title, publisher, format, ISBN, and price in USD. Because I have found that street lit readers most enjoy engaging with multiple titles at one time, I usually post 3 book reviews at a time on one blog post.  Sometimes I may do an author study and review 1-3 titles of one author in one blog post.

If you are a librarian or other educator and are interested in doing a guest review for this blog, feel free to contact me. Guest reviews are welcome!

I am also very happy to conduct author interviews for street lit. Publicists and authors are more than welcome to contact me to inquire about featuring an interview.

I read all books I receive. If I like the book and can recommend it for libraries, I will post a review within 60 days after receipt of the book. If I do not like a book, more than likely I will not review it. If your send me a book and I don't review it within 60 days, you can definitely contact me to request a private review.

I add all books I review to my street lit library collection. I weed my library about twice a year. Weeded books are usually donated to the Books Through Bars organization. My library is catalogued on LibraryThing.com, if you want to review my collection.

Book reviews are an added value to this blog site. This blog is not primarily a book review site, but is an overall commentary contributing to the discourse for the street lit genre. Book reviews are consistently featured - at least once per quarter.

Policy update: 27 May 2019, Vanessa Irvin, streetliterature.blogspot.com.

StreetLiterature site *ON HIATUS*

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