Book Review Club discussion
BOOK REVIEW POOL
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Do We Need to Update Our "Favorable Review" Approach?
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Chris wrote: "First of all, let me clarify that I have no personal stake in this. I'm not referring to a review I received, nor to a book I reviewed. The inspiration for this message came from a review I saw (fo..."As a Mod, I would normally ask you to post this in the General thread. However, I find your post to be quite felicitous to my own feelings.
I'm going to bring this up with the other Mods.
Thanks, Chris.
Sacha
Thanks Sacha, and feel free to move the thread.
Yeah, I'm curious to know what the reviews are actually like that leave 4 stars. Do they have a LOT of complaints and still leave a 4?I'm trying to think about what I do. I think I'm pretty fair. If I have a minor constructive complaint but overall still enjoyed the read a lot, I'll leave a 4. If I was starting to get annoyed but was still intrigued by the story while being annoyed, I'll do a 3 but mention the annoyance which got in the way of the intrigue.
What happens is this: although the reviewer leaves a 4-star review, the review text paints a different picture, one that - in fact quite explicitly - states that in actual fact the book is worth less. Reading some of it (i.e. the review), an impartial visitor such as myself wonders, how on earth can this reviewer give a 4-star rating to a book s/he considers so poor?
Do we need to update our "favorable review" approach? Personally I have no qualms leaving a 3-star rating (after all on a scale 1-5, a 3-star rating is still above average), though I usually give the author the heads-up before I post it. If I absolutely hate something (1- or 2-stars), I return the book to the pool.
But in my opinion, this practice of 4-star ratings accompanied by utterly incongruous text must stop.