One-star/five-star reviews, and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin

[inverarity]

I'm curious to know how many of you have had the experience of reading a book, deciding you love/hate it, and then reading a highly critical/laudatory review and thinking, "You know, they're right, I didn't think of it that way before," and revising your opinion? Do you actively seek out negative opinions, even of a book you like, to find out why

Comments

Deathly Hallows review

[anonymous]

So I read the DH review, because I wanted to understand the people who hated it so much.

Daniel Hemmens does what every reviewer does, who had a negative opinion of a book before reading it.
He writes idiotic thinks like: "They make Nazi salutes" without putting it in context (They simply show their Dark Marks to each other).
Or the often wrongly interpreted talk with Lupin about Exspelliarmus "They're far too evil to consider the advantages of being armed when your opponent isn't" Which is completely beside the point.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people criticizing the book but this is just useless, because he disliked it from the start because of a quote he hated.

There are great reviews, like the one about Twilight, which give us new information, so we can see it in a new light, but Hemmens simply whines about the terrible unimaginative writing style in 100 different ways.

I prefer your way of commenting on a book, the likes and don't likes. It made me want to read the book and form my own opinion.
(Hemmens couldn't even find one single positive part of the book and he has to
"exorcise the spirit of Potter from his soul")

Re: Deathly Hallows review

[inverarity]

Hemmens's review was definitely more snark than critical analysis. However, he did touch on a few things that I thought were significant in retrospect. For example, Harry's death-march into the woods, with his parents cheering him on. That was quite touching when I first read it, as Rowling intended. However, I agree with Hemmens that in retrospect, it's pretty effed up for your own mother, whose sacrifice to save you is the foundation of the series, to be telling you that she's proud of you for offering yourself up like a sacrificial lamb.

That said, I agree that reviews that focus entirely on negativity and snark and can't bring themselves to find one good thing to say about what they're reviewing aren't terribly informative, and should be read for entertainment purposes only. (Unless it really is so atrocious that there's nothing good to say about it -- and Deathly Hallows definitely does not fall into that category.).