I've been reviewing books on Smashwords since I started reading indie books there last spring (link to my reviews in siggy), and I just recently revived an old blog that was sitting around without a purpose, and decided on my purpose (as shown below
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I'm honest about my feelings. When I give a book a lower rating, I try to include the reasons why in my review. Some of my reviews on Smashwords are pretty short, some are longer.
I appreciate reading other reviews out there, especially reviews for Indie books. I have downloaded a *lot* of books from Smashwords, and I have definitely been frustrated with the reviews that are all "love love." When I see 5-star reviews that just gush, I generally go to the reviewer's page and 9 times out of 10, all of the reviews on that page are 5-star, gushing reviews. I think honesty in reviewing is where it's at. People may disagree with me, and that's fine, but how can I trust that a review is someone's honest opinion if that reviewer doesn't seem to know how to hit less than 5 stars?
I'm pretty new to reviewing books (most of my experience writing is in scientifically-minded research papers or personal journals), but I figure I enjoy reading, so why not try to share my opinion? The worse that can happen is no one reads my opinions. And that's nothing new
