Quote:
Originally Posted by Atunah
I also read the lower star reviews first usually. If I find stuff in there that really bugs me, I move on from the book. Things that make the book not actually part of the genres they claim to be, things that just totally turn me off and I don't want to read about. Stuff like that. Formatting errors and blatant mispellings and such.
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Same here. By starting with the lower stars, I can see what the complaints are and if I care about those issues. Sometimes they're about stuff I can't stand, sometimes they're exactly what I'm looking for.
Then I work my way up the list. I hardly ever read the five start ones, I just note how many there are.
(Although I do tend to leave a lot of five-star review myself. But I think that's because I've filtered my own books well enough to be happy with my choices.)
If it's a series, I'll check the reviews as the series moves along. I don't mind a bit of ratings drop, as the story arc progresses, but a huge drop shows me that the author's lost it along the way, and it's probably best not to get invested, even on a good first book.
What do I like to see in a review? What's not in the summary. Vague impressions without spoiler details. Whether there's a lot of time jumps, POV shifts, character growth, realism, characters without common sense, plots that do/don't work, mysteries that have too many red herrings or that don't make sense when revealed, plot holes, warnings of torture porn (where descriptions of torture are so overdone they seem to be the point of the story).... things that the summary doesn't include but other readers might want to know.
And I do value the "Did Not Finish" tags. I know some people say you shouldn't review a book unless you finish it, but I say that if a person has invested time in a book and can't finish it then that's a huge thing other readers need to know. Because even with a great cast and a great plot idea, if the author can't keep the reader interested then that says an awful lot about their skill.
When I Do Not Finish a book, I'll take a minute to decide if maybe I just wasn't in the mood and picked the wrong genre, have read so many that fit the same genre that even a good book would bore me, or if it was the book itself. If the first two, I'll put it aside to start again later. If the last, then I'll leave the DNF review, stating why, and move on.
When I find a reviewer I agree with, I tend to catch up with them and see what they recommend next.