Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Not always because you can know enough to know it's not good from reading what others have said and reviews.
You do your research enough, you'll have a good enough idea.
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Your "research" consisted of one Amazon review, a site that
has serious issues with review quality. Said review has had no one find it helpful, and even other negative reviews don't back up its conclusion.¹ That reviewer also
has a history of calling books sexist in their reviews. Including two other novels by Iain M. Banks. Based on their review history I'd personally dismiss them all as untrustworthy, as they seem to have an ax to grind.
On the other hand you have hundreds of positive reviews,
and the book being nominated for a prestigious reward. I'll even break those down further in the spoiler along with the above footnote:
Spoiler:
5★ (192 on Amazon, 2,594 on GoodReads)
4★ (99 on Amazon, 3,929 on Goodreads)
3★ (42 on Amazon, 2,293 on GoodReads)
2★ (24 on Amazon, 572 on GoodReads)
1★ (11 on Amazon, 165 on GoodReads)
¹ While there's too many for me to do it on GoodReads, I skimmed through all thirty-five 1&2★ reviews on Amazon. One of the 2★ reviews mentioned the rape, saying they disliked it being described in detail. That was the only other mention of rape or sexism besides the 1★ that JSWolf linked.
You didn't "research" your opinion, you decided you didn't like the book and hunted for a single piece of evidence to support your preconceived notion.