Self-Googling: the agony and the ecstasy

Today I fell off the anti-self-Googling wagon in spectacular fashion. For your amusement and edification, here's a sampling of what I found people saying about The Lost Crown:

Pacing:
"...you easily could have docked 50-100 pages."

"No chapter is useless or unnecessary."


Momentum:
"It is so well written and captivating that I couldn’t put it down; read it all in one sitting."

"...the book may have made me cry out of boredom at some parts..."


Style:
"She uses a lot of unique similes and metaphors throughout - which were mildly distracting..."

"I was floored in regards to her beautiful descriptions."


Characters' believability:
"The relationship between the sisters is realistic to the point of being eerie..."

"...all of the girls react in interesting ways and, sometimes in ways that almost don't make sense."

Voice:
"The book is told from Tatiana, Olga, Maria and Anastasia's POV, sounds lovely no? It wasn't, it's hard to keep track of who is who..."

"...I was impressed with Miller's ability to give distinct voices to each girl, while at the same time showing how similar they were..."

POV:
"Each princess has their own unique voice and offers different insight into what was happening-whether it be war-torn Europe or problems at home..."

"...having four voices going through basically the same things does make the book a bit confusing."


Historical scope:
"She seemed to leave out certain things, or just didn't go into them very much..."

"...The Lost Crown offers a whole lot more in the way of story and real historical events."

The bloggers and Goodreads members whose snippets I've ganked could argue that I've pulled some of these lines out of context. That's absolutely true. But you know what else is true? When you're the author of a brand new book, sometimes all you can see are the best and worst fragments of a reader's reaction. And the real kicker is, when the book is so sparkly-fresh that you're panting for feedback, you believe EVERYTHING everyone says.

It's enough to make you crazy, and in the beginning it usually does. All that noise can burrow into your head and start to taint your feelings toward your own book. That's when you've got to STOP typing your name into Google. But not forever, because after a while, when enough reviews and reactions have accumulated, all those opposing opinions suddenly become comforting as you begin to realize that nothing any one person says is going to mean life or death for your pretty new book-baby. I think that's where I am now. For a minute, anyway.