Quote:
Originally Posted by RDaneel54
The best group of reviews to check out are for a political book. Exactly 50% love it and can see no errors; the other 50% hate it and can see no good points.
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Agreed. But to expand on that a bit, any book regarding politics, religion or opinion will generate a wide range of responses. I've seen some outstanding books rated very poorly because of profanity used or subject matter. Take a look at the banned book lists for a good example of knee-jerk reactions to style and detail as opposed to content. In the U.S., conservatives will often rate Obama's book poorly while liberals will denigrate Bush's writing. Any book that challenges religious thought will get high marks from liberals and low marks from fundamentalists.
In choosing what books to read, I rely on recommendations from people I know and trust with honest opinions. I also pick several low ratings when looking on Amazon or Goodreads and find most of them due to clear reviewer bias, which is helpful.
On the other side of that coin, I have given very few poor reviews because I'm not an impulse buyer. I pick my reading material carefully, avoiding things I don't want to spend time on - vampires, YA, zombies, political opinion and religious dogma. So I read them but seldom have to write them. That's not to say there aren't good books there, but I just don't have time to find out. A steady diet of highly rated books keeps me from having to deal with explaining to an author what I didn't like about his/her work. And I usually write a condensed paragraph review of my reaction to all books I read on Goodreads and LibraryThing, and often on Amazon if the book is in their listings.
