Book Reviews Part 1
Book reviews are one of those true enigmas in my world. They have the potential to be clever, informative, funny, persuasive, and valuable. They also have the potential to be pretentious, self-absorbed, or valueless.
There have been reviews that helped move me in the direction of buying a book; however, I usually ignore reviews that are insulting or have a malicious tone. I suppose my belief is that those emotions shouldn’t have a place in reviews.
Something that frequently surprised me in the past were the number of 1-star reviews I might find on a book that I love. I’ll give you two examples.
Stay Close by Harlan Coben
Ratings: Amazon = 3.8 and Goodreads = 3.87
# of 1-star reviews on Amazon: 54 (9%)
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Ratings: Amazon = 4.4 and Goodreads = 4.28
# of 1-star reviews on Amazon: 264 (6%)
Reading through the 1-star reviews only reinforced something a wise man told me recently, and that is that reviews often tell you as much, or more, about the person writing the review, than it does about the actual book. Those bad reviews were at times pseudo-intellectual or pretentious. I mean, really? When you give a book one star, you are telling the world that your opinion is that there is nothing redeemable about the book. You’re rating it as low as it can go. How low, can you go … how low, can you go… But, what’s funny and ironic to me about that is how obviously wrong it seems when other people are giving the book five stars. A review or two could be an anomaly, but tens or hundreds of good reviews? Hmm. Because that means people are finding value in it. Value goes beyond a single reader, doesn’t it? Maybe not. Perhaps that is just my opinion.
When I write reviews that’s the mindset I keep. When I saw the crazy success of 50 Shades of Grey, I decided to give it a try and see what all the fuss was about. I don’t normally recommend reading books you don’t think you’re going to like. I mean, it’s like jumping in the mud and being upset if you get dirty. It isn’t sensical. But I did it anyway, and for me, both the content and the writing were bad. I gave it two stars instead of one because despite my feelings, I respect that this author created something which appeals to so many people. I feel like James deserves some credit for that.
The people that really crack me up are the ones that write 1-star reviews and then say that, if it were an option, they’d give it zero stars. Really? You’re going to change how the cylinder is graduated? A scale is a scale. You don’t change the scale if it’s someone else’s scale. We might as well rate it negative stars then. -1 star or -10. Or minus infinity. That’s where we took things as kids, right? Minus infinity? It sucks times infinity. Yeah.
Or how about the “I didn’t finish reading it” people that leave bad reviews. I guess that is their prerogative. My personal rules is that I can only truly evaluate something I invest the time to complete. Then I have earned the right to critique it.
Okay. That’s enough for one day about reviews. There are so many angles that I want to discuss, related to both being an author and a reader. That’s why this is PART 1.
Take care, world!
