Booking Through Thursday: Let's Review
Oh look, it's Thursday! It hasn't been Thursday on my LJ for a very long time...
How much do reviews (good and bad) affect your choice of reading? If you see a bad review of a book you wanted to read, do you still read it? If you see a good review of a book you’re sure you won’t like, do you change your mind and give the book a try?
I don't actively seek out professional/non-personal reviews before looking at a book, so it's more of a "hmm, book" and then look at reviews. So I'm not someone who uses reviews as suggestions. There are of course some exceptions, if I encounter something interesting by chance. I do use a book's blurbs (a review of sorts I suppose) to buy books admittedly, such as Mary Doria Russell's recommendation of The Jane Austen Book Club pretty much sold it to me right then and there (though I did end up liking it perfectly well myself). But, I don't think I've had a good review make me consider giving a book a second chance.
If I've a topic in mind and haven't quite settled on a particular book I do look on LibraryThing and Amazon to see what the reviews are - particularly when I'm not familiar with the subject or plain old don't have an opinion. I can usually figure out if someone's got an axe to grind about a particular topic, and sort through otherwise. Most of the time, however, I'm depending on a personal recommendation or an author I'm otherwise familiar to increase my to-be-read stack.
How much do reviews (good and bad) affect your choice of reading? If you see a bad review of a book you wanted to read, do you still read it? If you see a good review of a book you’re sure you won’t like, do you change your mind and give the book a try?
I don't actively seek out professional/non-personal reviews before looking at a book, so it's more of a "hmm, book" and then look at reviews. So I'm not someone who uses reviews as suggestions. There are of course some exceptions, if I encounter something interesting by chance. I do use a book's blurbs (a review of sorts I suppose) to buy books admittedly, such as Mary Doria Russell's recommendation of The Jane Austen Book Club pretty much sold it to me right then and there (though I did end up liking it perfectly well myself). But, I don't think I've had a good review make me consider giving a book a second chance.
If I've a topic in mind and haven't quite settled on a particular book I do look on LibraryThing and Amazon to see what the reviews are - particularly when I'm not familiar with the subject or plain old don't have an opinion. I can usually figure out if someone's got an axe to grind about a particular topic, and sort through otherwise. Most of the time, however, I'm depending on a personal recommendation or an author I'm otherwise familiar to increase my to-be-read stack.