Do you post negative reviews?
When I first started blogging I made up my mind that I was going to post reviews no matter what I thought about the book even if it was negative. I since started to change my mind and have decided to post a round up of a books I haven't got on with for a variety of reasons in one single post with links to more positive reviews. I have decided to do this for a variety of reasons.
The most important reason why I don't want to post negative reviews is because I don't see the merit in ripping into someone's pride and joy for the sake of it. I am fickle in what I like - if I have to concentrate for a book I usually don't get on with it (especially after a long day at work). Authors put their heart and soul into a book who am I to tell them it is awful?
Wasting time continuing to read a book that I am not getting on with takes away from time I could use to read books I enjoy. I can't believe that some people read the first book in a series, give it one star then continue to read and rip into the rest of the series (I saw a particularly nasty one ripping into the Twilight series - seriously do these people have nothing better to do, or nothing else to read for that matter).
I find it hard to write negative reviews and not come across as unreasonable or nasty. I'm sure this isn't what my followers want to read or publishers want to release their books to.
Therefore I would like to state from here on out www.overflowinglibrary.com will be a negative review free zone. I will do my round up book break up posts but if you see an individual post on a book you will know it is of a book I have enjoyed enough to see it through to the end.
What do other bloggers do? Do you post negative reviews? Why? Why not?
When I first started blogging I made up my mind that I was going to post reviews no matter what I thought about the book even if it was negative. I since started to change my mind and have decided to post a round up of a books I haven't got on with for a variety of reasons in one single post with links to more positive reviews. I have decided to do this for a variety of reasons.
The most important reason why I don't want to post negative reviews is because I don't see the merit in ripping into someone's pride and joy for the sake of it. I am fickle in what I like - if I have to concentrate for a book I usually don't get on with it (especially after a long day at work). Authors put their heart and soul into a book who am I to tell them it is awful?
Wasting time continuing to read a book that I am not getting on with takes away from time I could use to read books I enjoy. I can't believe that some people read the first book in a series, give it one star then continue to read and rip into the rest of the series (I saw a particularly nasty one ripping into the Twilight series - seriously do these people have nothing better to do, or nothing else to read for that matter).
I find it hard to write negative reviews and not come across as unreasonable or nasty. I'm sure this isn't what my followers want to read or publishers want to release their books to.
Therefore I would like to state from here on out www.overflowinglibrary.com will be a negative review free zone. I will do my round up book break up posts but if you see an individual post on a book you will know it is of a book I have enjoyed enough to see it through to the end.
What do other bloggers do? Do you post negative reviews? Why? Why not?
Comments
I saw a review of Raised By Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes on GoodReads and I was utterly disgraced at it when I read it. It was torturous to read because this girl was just being highly disrespectful and wrote about so much negativity that I just thought she doesn't have a heart. She even began relating it to Twilight. Why would you do that? Seriously! What was even worse is that it is one of the first reviews you come across because it has the most comments/views and everyone takes her word for it. Go check it out because you'll be disgraced too. I loved this book wholeheartedly and Jennifer is a fantastic young author with a great future ahead of her. She doesn't need this negativity. Nobody does!
Woops that was my rant. Check out my review on my blog.
Great post, thanks :D
but now that i am older and have my own job and with family i buy books depending on the book reviews. i am not rich and i really try not to buy books without checking blogs or amazon first for the review. its really disappointing to buy books that aren't good. so i believe in posting negative reviews.
there i just posted my book review for Nightshade by Andrea Cremer. Ive not read a single negative review about it so i bought it. i was sooo disappointed that i wasted my money on that book which is hard bound btw. it really depends on the reader. if they think its awful, then they have the right to say it. reviews are posted because you want your readers to be aware of the books you liked/disliked.
im not sure what others think about my negative reviews in my blog but i believe they're okay, but lately i add a link of the positive reviews to my negative review so readers will see what others think about the book
If you bought a book because you'd read 10 fabulous reviews about it and then hated it yourself, would you not be really disappointed? Maybe 100 bloggers read that book but only 10 liked it and posted their reviews. Personally I'd rather read 10 great reviews and a couple of bad ones too. It gives balance and when I do go and buy the book I know that.
This is all my own personal opinion though (so don't hate me :-), but I feel if we never post a negative review, we become more 'advertisers' instead of 'reviewers', as in advertising all the good and popular books instead of giving the reader a choice.
I totally agree about blogs who only post 5 star reviews that does get tiresome. I don;t have a problem posting 3 star (or even 2 star reviews) and picking out both the positive and the negative bits from a book I have read. What I don't like is when someone rates a book one star and just rips into it. That said if I thought a book was that bad I wouldn't bother finishing it anyway to be able to write a 1 star review. If I've got through it it deserves at least a 2.
Yes and I totally agree about the advertiser thing!!
Imagine if that's you and your book that you've worked so hard on and revised it so many times, you would feel terrible if someone ripped the books to shreads.
I think negative reviews do help people. I mean reviews are just what they think and as a help so people know whether they are going to be blown away.
So, now if I do a negative review, and I know others that do this too, add some positive and negative so no-one can accuse you of being too negative or too postive and just be honest.
Oh the advertiser thing. I TOTALLY agree. Those who recieve free books from publishers, something I then read it and think, hang on, this isn't as good as you made me think, could they be changing it slightly for the publisher?
I don't know. That's what I think anyway.
Sometimes i'm a bit harsh too but actually i don't feel bad about it. When i write something negative, i'm always giving an explanation. We do reviews right? And reviews are our opinions, if we don't write negative reviews it's like we don't talk.
The authors need to know that they will not hear all good things about their books.
If i was writer, i would love more to read a negative review. Cause i love to see how the other think about my work. All the blogs are full of good reviews, most of them are not either true.
When i receive a book from a publisher, and not via NetGalley,etc, then i will tell them that i have a bad review before posting it. Only because they send the book to me and i feel that's the least i can do. I will not change the review but i will give them the chance to decide if they want me to post it or so.
I do make art. And i have heard negative comments about it many times. I tried to work on the things they said and i became better.
It's not so much the negative review, as write what you truly believe. How can authors be mad when you tell them what you really feel and give them an explanation? If they find it bad, sorry to tell it but they just doing it for the money or smth.
I hope i wasn't too mean XD
I like the links to positive reviews if you really hated a book - then the reader can make up their own minds about whether a book is worth reading!
I think it's important for reviewers to say they didn't like a book and why if they really didn't like it. I don't see a point in not reviewing a book because you didn't enjoy it. I have done negative reviews and will continue to do so (if I don't like a book) because I don't see it as a bad thing. It's honesty. I read it, I didn't enjoy it, I wrote a negative review in the same way as when I read a book, enjoy it and write a positive review.
If there were good things about the book, I would mention those too of course. If you enjoyed a book, give it a positive review, if you didn't, give it a negative review. Simple. As a reviewer, yes, other readers will see your review of a book first-but that doesn't mean you have to be positive about a book that you didn't enjoy.
If I read someone's review-which they had perhaps not enjoyed but reviewed positively anyway- and if I went out and read it because of their recommendation and hated it, I wouldn't take recommendations from them again because obviously our tastes don't match.
I have read a lot of positive reviews for books I haven't enjoyed but those reviewers didn't change the way I felt about the book personally after I read them.
'I find it hard to write negative reviews and not come across as unreasonable or nasty. I'm sure this isn't what my followers want to read or publishers want to release their books to.' --It's your personal choice if you don't write these types of reviews, but I as a follower want your personal and honest opinion and I'm sure that's what the publisher wants- your honest opinion, regardless of whether it's positive or negative.
There will always be some people who don't enjoy a book; no author will have all reviewers saying they enjoyed the book, not even JKRowling or Stephen King.
'Authors put their heart and soul into a book who am I to tell them it is awful?'--Who are you? You are a reader first and foremost before you are a reviewer. You have an opinion. Authors know what they are getting themselves into when they write a book and know that there will be people who didn't enjoy it. Of course, all negative reviews should be written tactfully, without personally attacking the author.
When I see blogs with 4 and 5 star reviews across the board, honestly, my initial reaction is that they are easy to please. Now, of course, if I see a statement like this saying you don't post negative reviews I don't think that.
So far I've only had to do a couple kind of negative reviews and the author ended up commenting on one. I felt really bad after she read it that I had pointed out stuff I didn't like in her story, but I shouldn't have felt bad. The review was actually really balanced. And she asked me to review it for her. I state in my review policy though that I only review books I finish and that if I do post a negative review and the publisher or author doesn't like it, I will take it down.
Like a few other people have said, it's just all about balance.
I think authors know and have to accept that every reader will think differently about their book.
Books For Company
Yeah, the author poured their heart and soul into their book, but at the same time they offered it up to the public to read. That doesn't give people the right to bash the hell out of it if they don't like it but if people have genuine concerns or dislikes about the book, and want to post it intelligently (be they a book blogger or just someone posting a review on Amazon), they're certainly able to. That doesn't make them nasty; it just makes them honest. People have a right to know the good and the bad of a book they're about to read.
As someone that's read the whole of the Twilight series and reviewed it, and hated it, 1) all four books took me all of a day and a half to read total. Not a huge chunk of my time gone. 2) I kept reading with the glimmer of hope that they'd get better, that I'd see the worth that the hordes saw. Fail. 3) I needed to tamper down the praise for it because I felt it didn't deserve all the hype it was getting. 4) I bashed the fuck out of the last book because I do think SMeyer was a piece of shit for glorifying a horribly abusive relationship and making pedophilia all sorts of sweet and sexy. But that's just me.
Personally, I feel that blogs that only post positive reviews just can't be trusted in their opinions. What you are showing to the world is that you love everything you read, that you never come across a bad book so you ultimately look like a shill. Now I know that's not the case and I know quite a few bloggers only post positive reviews but you have to realize the repercussions of doing that. If you post a balance, people will get an idea of what you do and don't like (a plus for publishers that actually do their homework) and it makes your more positive reviews all the more weighty. If you post nothing but positive then, well, you think everything's good so why should I read your reviews? If you post a balance, you'll give the books you really like more weight with your positive reviews because people will know you're not willing to just hand out the praise. But that's just my opinion, for which could mean absolutely nothing to you. And that's fine. Just adding my two cents.
But don't think you're taking the author's dreams in your hand and pulverizing them to dust with a negative review. You're not. They go into this knowing not everyone will like their stuff. Just don't add to the bashing because, well, bashing fails and doesn't do much of anything for the book or the reviewer.
I believe in writing constructive criticism rather than negative comments. I believe in honesty. If I was the author, I would know that my work would not appeal to everyone. I have written papers that have been ripped to shreds by others and been told to rewrite them. I learnt from that. I learnt how to improve my writing.
Wow, sorry, going on again.