Random thoughts about reviews

When we read a piece, we filter what we receive through our own set of preferences. That includes our own sense of what is appropriate, what is acceptable, and what is good.

 When we find books that we love, things go easy. I think the problems appear when we find books we do not like. 

 Here there are several questions to ask. Are we just writing some lines about the book for us to remember what was it about and impressions? Are we reviewing for other people who have similar tastes? Are we reviewing for a general public?

 This is important, because depending on the purpose I believe we need to "man up" (or "woman up" :D) to the challenge.

For example...

I´m not into YA--with exceptions, because it bores me to death. I met one author around here and bought his book. I found it a tad predictable.

 Now, did it make it a bad book? No way! It was excellent for its market.

 So... when the time to review came, I needed to make a choice. Was I reviewing for myself, for people with similar tastes or for everyone? If I was writing for myself, I would just put "YA", and avoided a star-valuation to not trash the writer--who is not responsible of my own "peculiarities". If I was writing for people with similar tastes, I would have probably avoided reviewing it, because they would not be interested, so why bother? I decided to review for everyone, and gave it four stars in Amazon. 

Used some parameters like coherence, characters, pace and made my valuation from there. I wrote my review with the intent of closing the gap between the book and its own market, and tell those out of the market to be aware.

Every reviewer has the right to review and give the value they want to the books; of course everything we do as reviewers talk more about ourselves as of the book we are reviewing.

There are all kinds of people online, and anyone who sits to write about others has a reason to do it. It is important when reading reviews to know where people came from to write it. 

 Reviewers to avoid in my opinion: 

All wonderful: If a reviewer only puts 5 stars to everything, there could be business behind. I read with care.

Toxic: If a reviewer has mostly low stars, is a very unlucky person or is using the system for something else. It could be business, witch hunt or who-knows. Anyway, I´m not interested. 

I read 3 stars first when looking into a book. They are usually the most balanced.