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 Community Reviews...Do they help you decide what books you want to read?
Today's discussion question is Community Reviews...Do they help you decide what books you want to read?
Now, there are like over A MILLION book sites out there (Goodreads, Amazon) where readers go out and post their reviews about the latest books that they have just read and have the whole world read them for their reading pleasure. So, imagine all of those book reviews spreading around the internet like a CELEBRITY'S POPULARITY and influencing the decisions that people make when trying to find a GOOD book to read!
So, the question here is... if you were searching for a book that you might be interested in and you want to see if the book is any good or not, do you rely on the opinions of the book community to help you search for that SPECIAL book you are looking for?
For me personally, YES, I do rely on the reviews from other book reviewers to decide which books I want to read.
I mean, think about it. If you see a book that has mostly NEGATIVE reviews, then wouldn't you want to steer clear away from that book? You probably would be wasting lots of PRECIOUS money on a book that is considered DAMAGED GOODS for the reader and you would be complaining to the high heavens about why you spend so much PRECIOUS money on a bad book.
On the other hand, if you see a book that has mostly POSITIVE reviews, then not only will your PRECIOUS money be well spent on a book that is WORTH buying, but you also have that nice, little book on your bookshelf for the whole world to see!
For me, if it wasn't for the fact that I've read other people's reviews about a certain book they've read, then I probably would have never checked out awesome books like Red Rising by Pierce Brown, Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and so on and so forth (because I will be here for all eternity explaining about all the GOOD books I've read because of the book reviews from other reviewers). I also think it's GREAT to consider how other people feel about a particular book and see if your opinions sync with that person's opinions (or not, it's great to think differently from other people too)!
So, what are your thoughts on all this? Do you let the opinions of the book community decide on whether or not you should check out a particular book you are looking for?
Interesting discussion! If a book has overwhelmingly negative reviews, I probably won’t read it, but other than that, I don’t think reviews influence me very much. I choose books based on the synopsis. If it sounds interesting, I’ll read the book, even if the reviews aren’t great.
ReplyDeleteAj @ Read All The Things!
I will admit that sometimes that happens with me where I'll just pick up a book if it's a series I've been following for a long time, such as the Hunger Games series. Even though I've been hearing mixed things about Mockingjay, I still picked up the book anyway because it was apart of the Hunger Games series that I wanted in my collection.
DeleteI find reading a mix of positive and negative reviews when I'm considering picking up a book very useful! I'll usually read more negative reviews to judge if I can overlook what made all those people dislike the book so much. Most times it's a no, but there have been books where most reviews are less than stellar that I adored :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome!
DeleteI absolutely use reviews to make decisions on what books to read! But for me it's not so much positive or negative reviews as reading a mix of different ratings and seeing *why* people liked or disliked the book so that I can figure out if it'll be for me or not. Like Mikky said, there are certain negative things I can overlook, or even things other people disliked that I like, and vice versa. But reviews are definitely influential and he helpful for me!
ReplyDeleteI agree! I think that other reviews definitely help people make some good choices on what books they want to read or not.
DeleteOh, I definitely look at reviews on Goodreads and other blogs to decide if I should read a book. Life's too short to read books you don't think you'll like!
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
Exactly!
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