The reason it got me thinking, of course, is that I've been reviewing for ... about half a century, actually; I had a review column in my college newspaper back in 1961. A lot of the books I have reviewed, perhaps even most, were fiction. The questions posed here may lurk somewhere in the back of my mind when I read a novel, but certainly not consciously. I just pick up the book and start reading. If I come upon a passage I think I may want to refer to, I make a note of it. But I try to read just for the fun of it. This is quite simply because what I want to have, first and foremost, is the reading experience, not the reviewing experience. And yes, emotional response is important, and the trick of reviewing is discerning what it is exactly in the book that causes that response.
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