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What's Your View On Reviews?
Allison,Can you share those plot tropes/lazy-writer stereotypes? As an author it would be useful to know them (if I'm guilty, I can reform and seek redemption), and as a reviewer I might be calling a goose something that's a duck, so maybe I could communicate my critique better.
Anyone who stops learning is dead.
r/Steve
Mod
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Allison,Thanks. I'll take a look.
r/Steve
Steven wrote: "Allison,Can you share those plot tropes/lazy-writer stereotypes? As an author it would be useful to know them (if I'm guilty, I can reform and seek redemption), and as a reviewer I might be callin..."
I'm not Allison but I know I hate:
-bandwagoning
-using already established tropes as a short-cut for character building
-using already established plot(tropes) as a short-cut for world building
Allison,Scanned that thread. It was interesting to see readers' likes and dislikes. The first person/present comments were particularly interesting. In my detective novels, I mix first person/past (one character) with third person/past (other characters). I'm glad I didn't try first/person present!
Most of the comments are common sense: cliched expressions are no-nos except in dialogue (because some people speak in cliches--I have several relatives like that); characters have to be four-dimensional (the time dimension is for growing), unless you're writing soap operas; a plot has to have internal logic (the silver spaceship can't turn green in the next chapter, unless it's covered by some alien slime); etc.
I think if all authors had good beta-readers, a lot of these "plot tropes/lazy-writer stereotypes" would go away, but maybe not if the authors don't pay attention to their beta-readers (I do).
Generally speaking, an author should take care of these things even before sending an MS to a beta-reader, but if certain glitches get past beta-readers, a reviewer does the author a good service by pointing them out...as long as they're not completely subjective whims of a reader/reviewer's taste--OK, even that, assuming a reader will be able to winnow out those subjective whims. Example: One reviewer objected to not having long sentences in my YA sci-fi mystery. All my studies of the YA meta-genre made before I set out to write a YA novel taught me to watch for vocabulary level and long sentences (that's more toward the tween level than seventeen or eighteen-year-olds), so I took the comment as a subjective whim. She didn't seem to mind the sexual angst in the story, something which turned other readers off (other subjective whims). You win a few; you lose a few (and Kurt Vonnegut doesn't like semi-colons).
Thanks for pointing me to that thread.
r/Steve
Allison wrote: MrsJ: Totally! Book hype mitigation is part of my reading strategy. I either need to read it as soon as it's out or much later, once everyone's stopped talking about it. Having my expectations dashed is like a betrayal, almost, but I'm not sure who or what to be mad at, other than myself for having ignored my own advice.True. But I feel like that when I get a book that has been described as one thing but what I get is something different. One great example of this (also a terrible book) is: If I Pay Thee Not in Gold.
OMG. The blurb only talks about the first few chapters of the book. That's not what the book is about at all. In fact, one of the characters spoken about in the blurb is only a secondary character. (And I'll stop here cause I'll rant all day).
But the reason I (went off on that tangent, lol) is that I actually picked that one up myself. No prompting needed (as much as that embarrasses me, lol).
MrsJoseph,By bandwagoning, do you mean fifty novels titled Gone X or Girl with Y or Fifty Shades of Z? Or, do you mean reviewers hopping on the bandwagon to write the Nth review for The Martian?
I hate both. If a writer doesn't have enough imagination to create original prose in her or his fiction novel, s/he should go write greeting cards or something.
I see a lot more of the first type of bandwagoning in movies, TV shows, and video games, though. Some of it in books is just due to authors bandwagoning on titles--that's plain lazy, but titles aren't that easy either, so one has to work at it.
r/Steve
Mod
I don't wanna pollute this thread to much, so the things that show up on my reviews over and over again are usually quality of writing and misogyny/racism related, from overt (the bad guy is a rapist, and it's only used to show how bad he is/how strong the victim is; no people of color in a world based on Earth) to casual (strong woman character who needs to be saved/falls apart at the end; food based descriptions of people of color).
Or, weirder still, a new world created whole cloth that still uses gender/race as a divider. This whole world is make believe! Explain the reasoning for this and deal with the consequences of a world full of bigotry, or pick a new thing for us vs. them politics.
But I think I'm digressing.
MrsJ: Re: bandwagoning, yeah, I don't have it in me to read another book about vampires or werewolves for awhile, I think. I'm ready for the next fad, which I think was fairies?
Mod
Haha! Hey, owning it is important. I had that happen more than once. Bought a three book collection for a vacation based solely on the thickness of the book and the opening two pages, which were really cool (and a decent blurb).
Bought it, got three pages in and both rued and lamented my life choices. I can't even remember the name, this is gonna bother me...
Let's please keep this thread on track. It is about reviews, not about "How to Write a Book", otherwise I'll lock it.
MrsJoseph wrote: "If I'm really expecting A but I get C, I'm pissed. "That happens to me too:) If I'm expecting an A due to all the hype I generally knock it down to a D just for wasting my time.
Kim,Sorry, but when reviewing a book, aren't we telling the author how s/he should have written it? There's going to be some crossover, at least--good luck trying to keep them separate. ;-) Almost every sentence in a movie or book review could be started by "In my opinion...." Allison's comment about first person/present shows that there is a wide range of likes and dislikes.
But, back to reviews: there are a few car ads touting safety features that start out like "The average attention span is N seconds..." (I forget what they claim N is, but it definitely wasn't minutes). Because Twitter, YouTube, computer games, and so forth require a lot less attention than a good review, are book reviews with good, solid content (OK, opinions) paid less attention than one- or two-liners basically giving a thumb's up or down without any explanation? That's a worry for me. My best and most enlightening review was a very long one for The Collector where the reviewer considered the good, the bad, and the ugly to the extent that even I, a speed reader, couldn't read it in seconds (maybe her or his sections are a good outline for all reviewers?--you could even play Morricone's theme song!). And the long Amazon review was a shortened version on that reviewer's website! (Amazon used to complain about 500+ word reviews--they don't seem too anymore.)
r/Steve
Steven wrote: ""The average attention span is N seconds..." (I forget what they claim N is, but it definitely wasn't minutes). Because Twitter, YouTube, computer games, and so forth require a lot less attention than a good review, are book reviews with good, solid content (OK, opinions) paid less attention than one- or two-liners basically giving a thumb's up or down without any explanation? "I think with this you have to consider target audience. Book reviews are meant to help book lovers. I assume that most folks who are looking to invest time in a book, are ok with spending a bit more time on checking out reviews than the average Twitter reader.
There will always be some reviews that many people are going to file under TL;DR, but that's not really the target person for the review. For those folks, there will always be an abundance of the one or two liners. The longer reviews are great for those of us who want a really in depth analysis. Which. as you can see from this thread, includes quite a few of us. ;)
Steven wrote: "MrsJoseph,By bandwagoning, do you mean fifty novels titled Gone X or Girl with Y or Fifty Shades of Z? Or, do you mean reviewers hopping on the bandwagon to write the Nth review for The Martian?
I hate both. If a writer doesn't have enough imagination to create original prose in her or his fiction novel, s/he should go write greeting cards or something.
I see a lot more of the first type of bandwagoning in movies, TV shows, and video games, though. Some of it in books is just due to authors bandwagoning on titles--that's plain lazy, but titles aren't that easy either, so one has to work at it.."
I mean the "By bandwagoning, do you mean fifty novels titled Gone X or Girl with Y or Fifty Shades of Z?" aspect.
I'm not bothered by multiple reviews because each person brings something different to each read. But I am annoyed when everything changes based on one currently popular trend.
Vampires, werewolves. They were everywhere in Romance before but that's NOTHING compared to the explosion that happened after Twilight became popular.
BDSM fiction/Romance is not new and 50 Shades of Copying Twilight didn't invent BDSM. It only did it badly. But geeze! The explosion of poorly done BDSM that popped up after 50 Shades of Pull2Publish FanFiction was just overwhelming. And overwhelmingly bad.
Same thing with dytopian fiction. There's no one who's doing it right now better than Octavia E. Butler did it...but damn if the copy cats haven't been out and about since The Hunger Games, et. al.
Allison wrote: "Haha! Hey, owning it is important. I had that happen more than once. Bought a three book collection for a vacation based solely on the thickness of the book and the opening two pages, which were really cool (and a decent blurb). "I've done that so many times I should have learned better... Or at least gotten the T-shirt.
Kristin wrote: "I think with this you have to consider target audience. Book reviews are meant to help book lovers. I assume that most folks who are looking to invest time in a book, are ok with spending a bit more time on checking out reviews than the average Twitter reader.There will always be some reviews that many people are going to file under TL;DR, but that's not really the target person for the review. For those folks, there will always be an abundance of the one or two liners. The longer reviews are great for those of us who want a really in depth analysis. Which. as you can see from this thread, includes quite a few of us. ;)"
I agree.
I like long reviews (if they are well written, informative and entertaining).
I also do not tweet, twit or snap. Or Facebook. Nor do I Tumble or Stumble or the rest of those things. I have an Instagram but I do not post. I mean, I guess I can start posting pics of book covers, lol.
My husband says I don't read graphic novels because they don't adhere to my word-count minimums.
MrsJoseph wrote: "My husband says I don't read graphic novels because they don't adhere to my word-count minimums. "I like that! I got hooked on Marvel comics in college, but I stopped 10 years later.
/digression
MrsJoseph,Any recent dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel has big hurdles to jump over compared to the classics, and I mean 50's vintage as well as far back. On a FB post, I just referred to C. M. Kornbluth's Not This August. I'll have to check out Octavia Butler.
To satisfy Kim, there are actually seven reviews of Kornbluth's book, although I disagree with one that calls it a satire--there's nothing satirical about it. His Marching Morons--now that's satire (and reminiscent of those warnings on hair dryers not to use them in the bathtub or on those plastic dry-cleaning bags not to let your kids use them as toys), That brings up the question: we all discover good books in different places, some classics, some not. Can we discover reviews before we discover the associated books? In other words, does a review ever lead anyone to a book? I think only word-of-mouth review (including emails, FB posts, etc from friends) can do that. And we live in a computerized society where they say emails will soon be passe!
r/Steve
Steven wrote: "MrsJoseph,Any recent dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel has big hurdles to jump over compared to the classics, and I mean 50's vintage as well as far back. On a FB post, I just referred to C. M. Kornbluth's Not This August. I'll have to check out Octavia Butler."
Octavia Butler is amazing. But she often delivers some serious gut punches so, there's that. I can't really re-read her due to the way she goes hard but I've adored every book I've read by her. Even Kindred (which isn't dytopian) - and it gutted me.
Steven wrote: "Can we discover reviews before we discover the associated books? In other words, does a review ever lead anyone to a book?
Of course it does! I mean, that's like the entire point of Goodreads, right? "see what your friends are reading." Or at least it used to be.
I've always been a heavy reader and buyer but the constant reviews on GR really made my book buying get out of control. It also opened me to new authors, genres and sub-genres.
MrsJoseph,Goodreads proves my last point and negates yours--talking about books here is online word-of-mouth, as we just did with Octavia Butler. "Formal reviews" on Amazon or GR or anywhere else are generally read only after we're already looking for the book(s) (as I'll do now with Butler). That assumes most of us here don't just read books because they're on the NY Times bestseller list (I guess that's a type of review or mystic selective process, but there's generally no correlation between their hype and my liking the book--they oohed and aahed over Flash Boys, for example, but I only read it after an in-law recommended it).
r/Steve
Steven wrote: "MrsJoseph,Goodreads proves my last point and negates yours--talking about books here is online word-of-mouth, as we just did with Octavia Butler. "Formal reviews" on Amazon or GR or anywhere else ..."
IDK if we're saying the same things.
I'm saying that reading my friends' reviews encourages me to then read the book that was reviewed. I'm also saying that the changes to GR's homepage means that I don't get as many reviews from my friends as I used to. So I'm seeing less reviews meaning I'm adding less books to Mt. TBR.
I don't necessarily pick up a book just due to word of mouth. I do but the Word of Mouth people for me are very, very specific. As in they have my phone number specific.
Mostly, I see a book being spoken about and if I like the cover and/or title I'll then go read reviews about said book. If I find the reviews entertaining, I may (or may not) read said book.
Steve, I lean more towards Mrs Joseph's opinion. Before Goodreads, I did exactly what you are implying, I find out about the book somehow, paper, window display, friend mentioning it and then I go read a blurb or review (or just the cover of the book) to decide if I want to read it.Post Goodreads is much different. Many times in the past 6 months I have seen a review of a book I had never heard of but read my friends rating/review and put it on my list, Monica does that for me (to me?) frequently, she reads a different set of books than my norm and also frequently is eloquent in their praise which makes me want to read them.
I know you say Formal reviews on Amazon or GR or anywhere else are generally read... but I have the factless opinion that it is mostly the reviews on Goodreads that introduce people to books, not the other way around.
On GR, groups and friends lead me to new books and authors. On Amazon, their software makes suggestions based on the buying patterns of thousands. But all of these suggestion sources lack detail.Reviews encourage me to read new authors, and help me avoid duds.
Steven wrote: "Kim,Sorry, but when reviewing a book, aren't we telling the author how s/he should have written it?.."
Absolutely not. Once the author has written the book and it's out there, it's out of their hands. If you want feedback from readers, that's what editors and beta readers are for.
The author is the last person I'm addressing in any review I've ever written. It's far, far too late for them to benefit anyway.
Thanks Krazykiwi. Sure authors can look at reviews, some tend to take that to extremes, but if I write a review it's for readers. Just as this book club is for readers, not made for authors.
Krazykiwi wrote: "Steven wrote: "Kim,Sorry, but when reviewing a book, aren't we telling the author how s/he should have written it?.."
Absolutely not. Once the author has written the book and it's out there, it's out of their hands. If you want feedback from readers, that's what editors and beta readers are for.
The author is the last person I'm addressing in any review I've ever written. It's far, far too late for them to benefit anyway. "
Agreed with Krazy Kiwi. If you are getting comments about this book from readers - that's experience you take to the NEXT book. NOT the current book.
I swear, few things burn me up more than an author expecting me to beta read their shit - especially if I paid for it. I'm not a beta, I'm a purchaser.
I do not believe in that "oh but this is a 1st time author" or "oh but this is a Self-published author" crap. I don't take excuses or reasons why something isn't up to par.
I take my reading seriously. If I bother to read [your] work, I'm taking it seriously (no matter the frivolousness/lightness of the work). Thus if I bother to review [your] work, then I'll also review it seriously and that means if its fucked, it's fucked.
Wait. I DO have something else that burns me up: authors complaining that "you didn't read the right edition!!! I read lots of reviews so I re-wrote the book, updated it and you're now reading the wrong one! You should read the right one!"
Ugh. I hate that. I'm not reading your shit again unless I liked it the first time. And I could give a shit that you "have a new edition out." You should have put that edition out FIRST. I'm reading what I got and that's that.
Hank wrote: "Monica does that for me (to me?) frequently, she reads a different set of books than my norm and also frequently is eloquent in their praise which makes me want to read them."Thank you Hank!! Trust me, it's quite mutual!!
All,Guess I'm just one of those authors (and readers) who's wasting you folks' time. I probably should have said "...should have written it or what s/he did that was appealing." Too late now. I'll bow out in a minute from this thread.
While I love GR, I NEVER read reviews here, unless you call recommendations by word-of-mouth a review, as MrsJ did with Butler. With the new GR format, it's hard to see the reviews anyway, like she said. Everything is subjective, but readers' opinions expressed in GR threads are much more interesting than any review.
Bye now.
r/Steve
Mod
I now only leave reviews for things I rate 2 stars or higher, and try to think "would I still say this if the author was my spouse?" This means my reviews tend to be fairly heavily self-edited, I'm afraid.
Edit to add: I do still comment on content warnings for books, even if they're one star. I feel that's important and something I'd definitely say to the author regardless.
Allison wrote: "Do any of you worry though about how small and interconnected the world is when you write reviews?..."As has been said upthread, I don't write for the author or even with the author in mind. I mostly write reviews for myself and my friends (though admittedly if I know the author through some sort of interaction, I probably do hold back on the criticisms). The tininess of the interconnected "book review" world came as a surprise to me when I stumbled across a review for a book I had written on Amazon but didn't want to admit to ever having read on goodreads. Word for word plagerism. I was flabbergasted...and it wasn't even a particularly well written review...
I guess you've already all figured out by now, I don't mince words in general, so I have no problem writing my opinions in reviews :) I don't review books I know the authors of personally anymore though.That said, if I do one star something, I try to explain why. Things I hate might be fine for other people.
It's also partly because I review mostly for myself. I go through stages, when I have the time, where I read a ton of books. Authors are always renaming and re-releasing things - if the description dragged me in once, it's going to do it again, so I still review if it's DNF and no rating, or if it's really bad, or if it's just not for me. Otherwise I'd probably just end up picking up the same disappointing book again.
It's partly because my (distantly) second audience is other people. We're consumers, not just readers, and I think it's a service to other consumers to note if the problems are things like really poor editing, ridiculous plots, or formatting errors that make the book unreadable.
Once one of those one stars got me one of the most absolutely civil multi post exchanges with an author that I've ever had, and almost made me forgive the faults I found with that particular book, and give him another try. If he ever writes another series, I probably will. Another time it got me threats of criminal proceedings (lol!) all over the librarian group here on GR (hilariously, based on a comment to the same review posted on an entirely different website), along with demands on multiple sites that I recant and remove the review.
Swings and roundabouts. Both those reviews are still on GR, years later :)
Mod
1-star reviews are fine but bandwagon 1-star reviews or just pure hate reviews I try to avoid.You can call something utter shlock, terrible and question why the author wrote it and give it a 1, just try not to be nasty about it.
Bandwagon reviews are way more common in the gaming industry then here, but it still happens look at Twilight, I bet a large number of those 1s are bandwagon 1s where the person probably didn't even read the book or just read a bad book because it was considered bad.
Aaron wrote: "Aaron Nagy | 436 comments1-star reviews are fine but bandwagon 1-star reviews or just pure hate reviews I try to avoid.
You can call something utter shlock, terrible and question why the author wrote it and give it a 1, just try not to be nasty about it."
What's "nasty" in relation to a review? Books have no feelings. I try not to discuss the author in my reviews as - most of the time - I see the work as separate from the person. Not to say the author is never mentioned, just not personally discussed.
But the book? I have no problem ripping it to shreds.
Also, since I've been a GR member for so long I've come to understand that a lot of people do not rate the way GR defines stars. They do all sorts of personal things with the rating so I wouldn't bother to bet anything on any reason any book has any rating (unless that rating is explained with text). I seen things starred as 1* = next in line for library borrow with 5* = deep in waiting line for library borrow.
MrsJoseph wrote: "What's "nasty" in relation to a review"Generally it's when you are attacking the author like you are writing to them. Reviews are for prospective readers, not for you to tell the author off or to tell the fans of the book off. They aren't very common and GR tends to lean a bit too heavy on deleting nasty reviews for my taste so you actually don't see them too often.
Aaron wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "What's "nasty" in relation to a review"Generally it's when you are attacking the author like you are writing to them. Reviews are for prospective readers, not for you to tell th..."
IDK. Personal attacks are not ok (calling names) but other than that...
There's a whole reader review site that's been around for years named "Dear Author." All of the reviews are written in a letter-like format and they all begin with "Dear _____." Even when they are negative.
But they don't call names. That's really the only place I think "nasty" can come in. But to say something like "author, you are a terrible writer and I hate everything you write" is fair game. Maybe not polite but fair game.
Of course, most of the time the pure hate reviews you will more commonly see on politics books or bandwagon hate reviews on something like Twilight where it's cool to dislike. That's actually mostly what I was referring to.
It annoys me when people write bad reviews and have only read a small piece of the book, or not at all. Aaron mentions 'Twilight'. I have heard that it's pretty bad but cannot offer a real opinion or write a review until I have read it. If I start a book and I can't finished it I usually move it to my exclusive 'Abandoned' folder and make a short note, but don't review it or rate it. IMHO I'm only justified in writing a bad review if I have read the whole thing and can explain why I didn't like it.
Usually I don't determine my interest or purchase of a novel strictly based upon reviews. They are a nice reference tool to see how others receive the story, however, my perception of what I've read is garnered by how the story makes me feel. It doesn't have to be a magnum opus for me to appreciate what is being told. Even if the execution is off, I still find things I enjoy. Being an author, reviews are quite important but they're not the end all be all.
I don't have to read a whole book to be able to explain why I didn't enjoy the part I did read, and therefore I am not finishing it. There have been very few books in my lifetime that improved well enough towards the end that I thought "Wow, I am glad I actually finished that one." In fact, I can't think of even one. So I finally learnt to just not finish the ones that are becoming an effort to continue reading, for whatever reason.I think "I'm not finishing this because..." is a perfectly reasonable reason to review something.
AndrewP wrote: "It annoys me when people write bad reviews and have only read a small piece of the book, or not at all. Aaron mentions 'Twilight'. I have heard that it's pretty bad but cannot offer a real opinion ..."It actually upsets me when people complain about DNF reviews. I write them all the time.
If I crack it open, I'm fully qualified to write a review on it.
Like KrazyKiwi said, I don't have to read a whole book to know I dislike it. I'm usually quite sure less than 30% in. The few times I have pushed myself have resulted in angry, rant-fill rage-fest reviews. I've lost so much in those scenarios: money AND time AND peace of mind.
Oh. It's rare that I review without rating so if I review it I'm rating it.
Mod
I think someone already mentioned (Mrs J?) that people use stars in different ways, so that may be part of it. It does lead to a little anarchy as far as it goes for those of us who do use reviews to help us find books, but who doesn't like a little mayhem, eh?
I think unread vs DNF is two different things. I won't rate anything I've not read, even if it's Twilight, but if I find a book so boring or bad that I don't want to finish it then it's an automatic 1 star.
If I finish a book the lowest rating I'll give it is 2 stars because at least it was interesting/good enough for me to make it through (there are some rare exceptions for exceptionally bad books that were very short).
I think MrsJ is my spirit animal. Or I'm hers. Or perhaps we are each other's evil twin.
Krazykiwi wrote: "I think MrsJ is my spirit animal. Or I'm hers. Or perhaps we are each other's evil twin."Or all three!
;-)
I used to ignore stars and simply read the reviews but after a while I tried the opposite. I know it is not normal to say so, but I actually prefer to just look at the stars and not the review because looking at the stars simply made me more curious. When I read the review it actually influenced my view when reading or watching a movie later on. I saw the movie through their view and not my own. Stars are just stars. You know people often just throws them around based on various reasons, so they don't influence me in the same way as concrete points against a book or movie.
I'll sometimes check the best and lowest rated reviews. Sometimes low ratings can be for damned silly reasons (late delivery or suchlike). It also depends a bit on the site. Amazon reviewers seem more generous (perhaps too much) than Goodreads', so that's worth considering too.Mostly I go by the initial blurb, whether I've read anything by the author before and maybe reviews. Samples are the biggest thing I go by, though. You can't trust these Other People. Some of them have wrong opinions :p
Hmmm if people are talking about star ratings, generally the overall number isn't the big difference it's the ratio.If a book has a large number of 5s and 1s that means it's controversial but probably very good at what it does.
If a book is very 5 and 4 heavy with very little anything else this means it's probably a universally great book.
If a book has a very bloated number of 3s and 4s, but basically no 1s or 2s, it is probably a universally enjoyable but not great book.
What I was getting on about Twilight wasn't so much even people giving DNF reviews, it's partially about why would you rate a book you went going into knowing you wouldn't like. It's generally why I sometimes feel conflicted when I accidently pick a wrong genre book about reviewing it. Because I'm not the target audience and I want the rating to reflect how that audience feels about the book not how I feel about it.
Aaron wrote: "What I was getting on about Twilight wasn't so much even people giving DNF reviews, it's partially about why would you rate a book you went going into knowing you wouldn't like. It's generally why I sometimes feel conflicted when I accidently pick a wrong genre book about reviewing it. Because I'm not the target audience and I want the rating to reflect how that audience feels about the book not how I feel about it. "Heh. You don't know the people I know, lol.
I know large groups of members who do "hate reads." They pick a book up, realize they hate it...and then finish reading it to pick it apart.
That's not even counting the WTFery reads - where a book is picked that is known to have issues.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Prince of Thorns (other topics)EL GIGOLÓ (other topics)
The Warded Man (other topics)
The Shadow of the Torturer (other topics)
Kindred (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Mark Lawrence (other topics)Don Viecelli (other topics)
Octavia E. Butler (other topics)
Dorothy L. Sayers (other topics)
Dorothy L. Sayers (other topics)
Aaron, I know I'd like to hear more! If you're posting elsewhere, I'd appreciate it if you could link it here, too, so I could follow it over for your thoughts :)
MrsJ: Totally! Book hype mitigation is part of my reading strategy. I either need to read it as soon as it's out or much later, once everyone's stopped talking about it. Having my expectations dashed is like a betrayal, almost, but I'm not sure who or what to be mad at, other than myself for having ignored my own advice.
Also, there are a few plot tropes/lazy-writer stereotypes that shoot my hopes right through the heart, even if the rest of the book could have been enjoyable, so I always call those out in reviews.