Jack Edwards - BookTube
Sep. 7th, 2023 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amado1I forgot to mention that I've been watching Jack Edwards videos like, nonstop.
He's a BookTuber, and at first I didn't like him -- I'm so used to being disappointed by BookTubers that I guess I've started actively looking for reasons to dislike them right off the bat. But I kept watching and now I'm thoroughly in Team Jack. I disagree with him wildly on some books, but I like the genre diversity he reads -- a good mix of challenging award-winners vs. popcorn TikTok bestsellers -- and I think he has a rare talent (among BookTubers) for actually critiquing a book's writing. He has a good habit of acknowledging when he dislikes a book because it simply isn't for him, too, instead of being like, "I didn't like it, so it's bad."
There are lots of male BookTubers who focus solely on ~elevated~ books, but when I watch their videos, I usually come away with no idea if they actually read the book in question, or if they just read a detailed summary; you know, like, there's no dialogue, no real critique. Nothing personal, even, like, "This is a classic, but I just couldn't stand the writing." And the ones I've seen absolutely won't touch mass market works with a ten-foot pole. So it's always seemed like BookTube is a choice between People Who Only Read YA Romance And Can't Critique Writing vs. People Who Only Read ~Classics~ That Their Professor Recommended, And Also Can't Critique Writing.
So Jack Edwards is a great find for me! He comes across as the type of guy who doesn't just read classics to check them off a list; he actually thinks about them, and enjoys doing so. At the same time, he likes to read popular books and isn't afraid to say, "Actually, this best-selling New Adult romance was really cute, I recommend it." And he does a lot of fun BookTube-y challenges and themed videos, like buying a mystery box of aesthetic "decor" books from Etsy, then actually reading them; ranking the books Lisa Simpson is seen reading by how appropriate they are for an 8-year-old child; reading all the best-selling celebrity memoirs of 2022 and then dissecting them to see which ones are actually worth the time.
(That was a fun one: he recommended Viola Davis, Jeanette McCurdy, Trevor Noah, and Paris Hilton; he gave fair but negative reviews to Matthew McConoughey, Prince Harry, and the guy who played Chandler Bing. His critique for Harry's memoir was that it's a valuable book in that it offers us some insight into a unique experience: being a prince, and also grieving for one's mother in such a public light as a young child. The sections about Diane are very moving. But overall, the book is just dull, and it's surprising that a prince could have traveled the world and been in the Army and still have nothing interesting to say about it all. This video might have been the one that tipped me over into Camp Jack, because he's the only person I've heard who had anything positive to say about Harry's memoir; I'm not a Harry fan, and I have no plans to read it, but that shows me that he actually read it and gave his real, thoughtful opinion. Plus, despite praising certain aspects of it, he still ranked it very low on the list and stressed that Paris Hilton's memoir is leagues better XD).
Most importantly, there's minimal blather in his videos -- with most YouTubers, I find myself skipping massive portions of their videos, because they'll go on an unedited ramble peppered with vocal fry and long pauses (because they can't remember the exact polysyllabic word that they're determined to use on camera). I haven't noticed that issue with Jack at all! (So far). His videos are focused, good-humored, and balanced.
(Full disclosure, I'm writing an essay on why you should watch Jack Edwards purely because I want to write this morning, but didn't do anything yesterday worth writing about XD I suppose I'd better look at my WIPs and stop goofing around)
He's a BookTuber, and at first I didn't like him -- I'm so used to being disappointed by BookTubers that I guess I've started actively looking for reasons to dislike them right off the bat. But I kept watching and now I'm thoroughly in Team Jack. I disagree with him wildly on some books, but I like the genre diversity he reads -- a good mix of challenging award-winners vs. popcorn TikTok bestsellers -- and I think he has a rare talent (among BookTubers) for actually critiquing a book's writing. He has a good habit of acknowledging when he dislikes a book because it simply isn't for him, too, instead of being like, "I didn't like it, so it's bad."
There are lots of male BookTubers who focus solely on ~elevated~ books, but when I watch their videos, I usually come away with no idea if they actually read the book in question, or if they just read a detailed summary; you know, like, there's no dialogue, no real critique. Nothing personal, even, like, "This is a classic, but I just couldn't stand the writing." And the ones I've seen absolutely won't touch mass market works with a ten-foot pole. So it's always seemed like BookTube is a choice between People Who Only Read YA Romance And Can't Critique Writing vs. People Who Only Read ~Classics~ That Their Professor Recommended, And Also Can't Critique Writing.
So Jack Edwards is a great find for me! He comes across as the type of guy who doesn't just read classics to check them off a list; he actually thinks about them, and enjoys doing so. At the same time, he likes to read popular books and isn't afraid to say, "Actually, this best-selling New Adult romance was really cute, I recommend it." And he does a lot of fun BookTube-y challenges and themed videos, like buying a mystery box of aesthetic "decor" books from Etsy, then actually reading them; ranking the books Lisa Simpson is seen reading by how appropriate they are for an 8-year-old child; reading all the best-selling celebrity memoirs of 2022 and then dissecting them to see which ones are actually worth the time.
(That was a fun one: he recommended Viola Davis, Jeanette McCurdy, Trevor Noah, and Paris Hilton; he gave fair but negative reviews to Matthew McConoughey, Prince Harry, and the guy who played Chandler Bing. His critique for Harry's memoir was that it's a valuable book in that it offers us some insight into a unique experience: being a prince, and also grieving for one's mother in such a public light as a young child. The sections about Diane are very moving. But overall, the book is just dull, and it's surprising that a prince could have traveled the world and been in the Army and still have nothing interesting to say about it all. This video might have been the one that tipped me over into Camp Jack, because he's the only person I've heard who had anything positive to say about Harry's memoir; I'm not a Harry fan, and I have no plans to read it, but that shows me that he actually read it and gave his real, thoughtful opinion. Plus, despite praising certain aspects of it, he still ranked it very low on the list and stressed that Paris Hilton's memoir is leagues better XD).
Most importantly, there's minimal blather in his videos -- with most YouTubers, I find myself skipping massive portions of their videos, because they'll go on an unedited ramble peppered with vocal fry and long pauses (because they can't remember the exact polysyllabic word that they're determined to use on camera). I haven't noticed that issue with Jack at all! (So far). His videos are focused, good-humored, and balanced.
(Full disclosure, I'm writing an essay on why you should watch Jack Edwards purely because I want to write this morning, but didn't do anything yesterday worth writing about XD I suppose I'd better look at my WIPs and stop goofing around)
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Date: 2023-09-07 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-08 12:01 pm (UTC)