Hello everyone! Welcome to my ☀Daily Book Chat☀ where I do some SERIOUS discussions that fellow book fans will get a kick out of and relate their thoughts about the subject to other book fans!
Today's discussion question is Pet Peeves about Book Reviews...What annoys you about book reviews?
Today's discussion question is Pet Peeves about Book Reviews...What annoys you about book reviews?
Aahh...book reviews...without them, us readers would never know if the books are worth picking up or putting down (because, who wants to spend money on a book that has mostly negative reviews)?
BBBUUUUTTTT...there are, of course, limits to how book reviews are treated and I wanted to go through the PET PEEVES I have with certain book review, so HERE WE GO!
#1: RATING THE BOOK BEFORE YOU READ IT
Okay, so you come across this book on either Goodreads or Amazon and you look to see if there are any reviews or ratings on the book to determined whether or not the book is worth checking out. Then you suddenly come across a book that has a 5 star rating and you yell out, "YIPPEEE!!!! HOORAY!!! This book must be an AWESOME read!!!" But then, you check out the release date for the book and you realized that the book HASN'T EVEN COME OUT YET and you're wondering to yourself about how in the world did the user even get their hands on the book? Did they get an ARC for the book? Did the author of the book gave them an early copy of the book? No one knows because the user never said anything about how they got the book or why they even rated the book that way.
This is one of those situations that irritates me to no end because 1) I will FOREVER be scratching my head and wondering about how in the world that user got the book in the first place (and how I can obtain a copy for myself (YES, I'M SELFISH) and 2) It's pretty misleading to other users who are trying to find a good book to read and yet, they come across a review of a book that hasn't even come out yet and they are wondering if the review is even authentic to begin with. Also, there's that issue about whether or not the user in question was rating the book due to how they felt about the author and just rated the book that way because they either loved or hated the author. Now, if you have problems against the author and you refused to read their books because of how you felt about the author, then I have nothing against people stating that fact in their reviews, but I PERSONALLY wouldn't want to rate a book based on my assumptions about the author because then you are practically rating the author and not the work that's THROWN RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! When people write reviews, it's for the books, not the authors (unless you are supporting the author by buying their works).
#2 THE BULLY SITUATION
Alright, nobody likes BULLYING at all, so it's pretty sad when it happens with book reviews also. One of the things I CAN'T STAND to the INFINITE LEVEL is users being bullied by other users (or even authors) about voicing their opinions about a book they've read. If that person didn't like the book that everyone else loves or likes the book that everyone else hates, then other people shouldn't torture the reviewer by saying things like "YOU'RE SO STUPID FOR NOT LIKING THIS BOOK or YOU'RE SO STUPID FOR LIKING THIS BOOK." Everyone has different opinions about a book they've read and some things either work or don't work for this person, but that doesn't mean that other people should verbally abuse that user for having a different opinion. These people should try to be MORE CIVILIZED about their opinions with other people and not give anyone a hard time about the books they've read.
So, those are some of my pet peeves in book reviews! What are some pet peeves you have with book reviews? Please comment below!
Pet peeves - SPOILERS!! Don’t ruin the book for me, ahhhh!! I also don’t find any value in reviews that just say I liked it/didn’t like it with no reasons why. Maybe you liked it because you love the secret baby trope, but I LOATHE it so I’d avoid it at all costs.
ReplyDeleteI also hate it when people just say "I Liked/Hated" the book without any explanation, because how are we supposed to know if the book is any good if they don't state why they liked or hated the book in the first place?
DeletePet Peeves - I dislike it when some retells the story or blurb in their review and then only say one or two things at the end that they liked about the book. Really... I don't need the book or blurb... I need your opinions on what you liked or didn't like in the book.
ReplyDeleteAnother Pet Peeve is gifs... I like pictures, but I don't need a gazillion gifs in the review.
I usually don't mind gifs in reviews as long as it's not the only thing in the review. I also hate it when people just give out the summary of the book and don't explain about what they liked or hated about the book.
DeleteGreat points! I also don’t like it when people change their rating based on their opinions of other books ... I once saw a rating where the guy absolutely loved the book and it was one of the best books he read but he gave it a 3 because he didn’t like that it had such a high average rating (it was above 4 stars) and most classics are about 3.5 stars and he didn’t feel a YA book should be rated better than classics
ReplyDeleteHmmm...I haven't heard of that situation before. I definitely wouldn't want to based my rating on other people's ratings.
DeleteI agree with both of these pet peeves! I don't at all get why people would rate a book they haven't read, and of course bookish bullying is just ... no.
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
Agree!
Delete