Everything I Wanted to Say About Not Writing Mean Reviews

"When I used to write mean reviews of people’s books, I thought of them as big, powerful people who deserved to have their work torn down. Then I started running into those people, and to my shock, they had read — and remembered — even reviews I’d written for obscure outlets. They were people who had spent years of their lives working on something — something they thought was really important — and I had spent perhaps two or three hours composing a sarcasm-filled denunciation. They were hurt, just like I’d be. This is both sobering and socially awkward."

"I have written some epic snark, and I have written a book, and let me just tell you, there is no comparison. Books are hard. Reported features are hard. Sarcasm and outrage are easy, which is why they tend to peak in adolescence, unlike, say, mastery of nuclear physics.

There is nothing harder than writing a good review of a book or a movie, for the same reason that it is difficult to write an essay on “why my mother is great” without sounding like a particularly inarticulate third-grader.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-13/why-i-try-not-to-write-bad-reviews.html

Brilliant, seriously, go read the original!