The first review came from a complete stranger. That mattered — the fact that it was a stranger.
My family read it. My friends read it. They wrote nice things, and I believed them — but deep down I knew they loved me, and that puts a certain filter on honesty. When someone loves you, they praise you a little more than warranted and criticize you a little more gently. That's normal, and it's a good thing in life, but it's not enough to tell you whether a book actually works.
Then came other reviews. Good, warm ones. Reading real reviews, I couldn't quite believe for a long time that they were all about a book I had written. Many people wrote that they were waiting for the sequel, which was gratifying too.
The most interesting thing was that I couldn't have put into words what my book was about or who it was for, and yet readers themselves wrote to me: "the book is so warm, it felt like I was talking to a friend." Similar feelings kept surfacing across the reviews — a lot of overlap, people who'd also left a small hometown for the capital, taken their first steps in business, felt the same doubts. People wrote that they felt what I'd felt, back when I'd burned out completely and kept asking myself, more and more insistently: what now?
And there was one review that wasn't very kind. From an acquaintance. We weren't close friends, but our families knew each other. You know the type — the kind of acquaintance who watches every single one of your posts and has never once liked one. She read my first book. I hadn't asked her for a review; she wrote to me on her own. It seemed harmless enough at first: "You wrote a straightforward autobiography — for me, all of it was familiar and didn't grab me. The description of the Soviet era was interesting, though I don't remember it myself. But you're older than me, so you do. You really let loose! The main thing is that you feel satisfied."
I felt like I'd been doused in filth, and I told her so. And I thanked her for her honest opinion. We haven't spoken since. Notably, she also asked me where she could read the second book. What was that supposed to mean?
So it was that very first review, from a stranger, that put everything in its place for me. I try to talk actively about my books on social media, and under one of my posts she left a comment saying she was ready to buy my book and read it. That was nerve-wracking. But a week later she messaged me privately, full of praise. She wrote that she'd only meant to support me at first (it also turned out she was from my hometown), but that my book had drawn her in so completely that everything she wrote after that was sincere and full of enthusiasm. (You can read her review on my website yourself, actually.)
Tears came to my eyes. Honestly. This is exactly why I write. So readers recognize themselves and "bare their soul completely" — that, by the way, is a direct quote from that very review.
I kept the unkind review too — as a reminder that I don't have to please everyone. Not me, and not my books.