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Anyone who regularly uses the reviews on, say, Amazon to decide whether or not they will like a book can easily pick out a "Harriet Klausner" type of review - high-rated and basically a regurgitation of the book blurb, with nothing negative noted. For those who don't read the reviews critically right from the start, then perhaps they need to learn an important lesson by wasting their money on the book.
It's very hard to be totally objective about a book because the reading experience is so subjective. I'll read NYT book reviews praising a book to the high heavens and my eyes will cross when I try to actually read the book. I'll read an Amazon review panning a book, but because I might have read other books by that author, I'm willing to take a chance with the book rather than dismissing it outright. I've read "The Great Gatsby" and I still don't understand the fuss; the book did nothing for me. To me, the literary classics are just like any other books - they either resonate within me or else they don't; it doesn't matter who praises or dismisses them.
People write term papers for others, they take tests for others, so I'm not surprised that there's a fake-review industry.
An author's recommendation of another author doesn't sway me. Too many times I've seen those same author-reviewers' names in the book acknowledgements, listing them as a member of the book-author's writing circle, for me to take them seriously.
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