Community Discussion: On Reviews

[musesong]

Here is another of the occasional community discussion posts. We were wondering how community members felt about print and on-line book reviews? These could be the professional ones generated by writers who are paid to review books or those reviews and ratings put up by readers on book selling sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, on review blogs

Comments

[bloody_keri]

That's interesting about Amazon, and I'd wondered about that before, frankly. I do pay attention to reader reviews as well as literary/pro reviews, but in the end it's the plot summary of the book that will determine whether or not I get it. I don't think I've ever said "Ooo, that sounds good" after checking out the synopsis, then read a bad review (or even more than one) and said "Oh, never mind." I do read the reviews, though. I hate, hate, HATE spoilers, especially when the reviewer doesn't warn you. I think it's incredibly irresponsible.

[darthmedusa77]

I read the reviews on Amazon, but not to see whether the book is "good" or "bad" but generally just to get more information. If the synopsis does not give me enough information, I will go to the reviews to see more. If a book sounds interesting, I wouldn't not get it just because some random anonymous person did not like it.

I have bought or checked out books from the library because I have seen them reviewed here and on other similar communities. However, this is also based more on what the book is about and not that some person I don't know liked it, if that makes sense. It just exposes me to a book I might not have known about or considered before.

I hate spoilers! I do want to know what a book is about, but I don't like too much given away.

Yes, I do sometimes like to read the reviews after I have read the book just out of curiosity.

[burn_bright]

I rarely read reviews before reading a book. I go by word of mouth more whether it's good/bad/controversial/gaining hype/subject matter etc. I listening to what people are reading but I hate spoilers. Most of time I don't agree with what the general concensus is anyway I find. Once I'm done with the book however I usually read reviews in depth be on Amazon, Livejournal, and Facebook(of all places haha).

[protest]

Yeah, I do that a lot too. I like reading reviews after I read a book to compare opinions, but I don't like to read reviews because I want my opinion to be entirely my own (well, besides the people saying it's good, bad, hyped, etc. because you're bound to hear that anyway).

I also hate those book summaries and reviews that give away 3/4 of the book's plot. Those drive me absolutely crazy!

[zhyegoatt]

I always try new authors or series through my library first because even paperback books cost too much nowadays to just throw away money on bad books. I do however, find a lot of my books through Amazon and their recommendations. On Amazon I mostly read the one and two star reviews to see what problems people had with the book because the five star reviews are usually by people that will read anything the author writes no matter how bad it is. Personally I don't consider many books worthy of five stars so why would I trust reviewers who pass out five stars on name recognition or genre alone

[mlle_jumel]

I read reviews on Amazon to get more information, but I make most of my decisions on what to read either from the reviews HERE on 50bookchallenge, and from family and friends.
I also mostly borrow books, so if I don't like something, I can close it and return it without regret.
I think reviews are useful for research books/travel books/non-fiction, but for fiction they are pretty useless. Personal taste, mood, and preferance cannot really be accounted for. I mean, I have even hated books at one point in my life that I love now, and vice versa.