Have you been misled by reviews before?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Yolina

I've had a look at the Katie Price "books" - they all seem to have average ratings of around 4 stars... so accordingly they must be good and I should buy them because so many people like them, erm no thanks

BEST BOOKS EVER!!!!!!!! This is why we still need publishers to decide what we should be reading.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

BEST BOOKS EVER!!!!!!!! This is why we still need publishers to decide what we should be reading.

Indeed and they'll keep turning down absolutely beautiful works such as Joolz Denby's "Wild Thing" because apparently it's "not in genre and cannot be marketed easily" and "too harsh for the modern reader"

[wyndslash]

i think they might be underestimating the modern reader :P

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

@spell: i try to write reviews for most books that I've read, but if a book is littered with grammar errors (for example), I usually tend to voice it since that is really one of my main points of contention. However, i've heard of authors lashing out at negative reviews, so I usually write nervously. i don't try to purposely pick faults; in fact, i must be one of the easiest readers to please. i just want good grammar

I, too, am bothered by errors that would have been picked up by professional -- let me emphasize professional -- editing. Professional editing won't make any book error free, but it will minimize grammar and spelling errors.

When I review a book I give it an honest review (from my point of view) and will point out that a book is riddled with errors that wouldn't be accepted by 6th grade teacher who knows English. If an author lashes out at one of my reviews, I simply reply saying:

I understand your disappointment, but had you taken the time and spent the money to have your book professionally edited, the review likely would have been more to your liking. If you have to blame someone for the bad review, look in the mirror -- because a bad review is your fault!

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Still, some of the things you are complaining about could apply to things widely considered to be a great work of literature. The Big Sleep, for instance. Chandler tried to make it more realistic in terms of dialogue, so there are grammar errors. He also cobbled it together from 3 different, unrelated short stories, so it's got plot holes.

First, I would be hard pressed to consider Raymond Chandler's books great (as opposed to good) literature, but each to his/her own. Yet...

In correct grammar in dialogue is not the same as incorrect grammar in nondialogue text. Dialogue stands on its own because it is used to convey many things that can only be conveyed by such instruments incorrect grammar and sometimes even misspelling (e.g., where the misspelling forces the reader to read something in a dialect rather than in standard language).

Plot holes are a good sign that an author has truly just cobbled something together and not paid attention to his/her craft. It is certainly not a sign of literary achievement or greatness.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I doubt that, myself. I never base my book-buying decisions on other peoples' views of a book, because I have no way of knowing whether or not their likes and dislikes in any way coincide with my own.

The only sort of review that would stop me from buying a book would be a report that it was poorly produced - ie, full of errors.

I'm with Harry on this one with some exception. I do rely on reviews in the New York Review of Books (and in the past on the London Review of Books) and a couple of other sources -- but not the New York Times Book Review, whose reviews are much too superficial to be of value these days -- because these review avenues, over many years, have earned my trust. Under no circumstance do I buy or not buy a book based on "reader" reviews at, for example, Smashwords (unless I happen to know the reviewer) or Amazon.

It just so happens, for those interested, that this is the topic of discussion at my blog today (Book Reviews & Reviewers: Deciding Which Reviews to Trust) and last week (The Missing Ingredient: Quality Control in Indie eBooks).

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I'm with Harry on this one with some exception. I do rely on reviews in the New York Review of Books (and in the past on the London Review of Books) and a couple of other sources -- but not the New York Times Book Review, whose reviews are much too superficial to be of value these days -- because these review avenues, over many years, have earned my trust. Under no circumstance do I buy or not buy a book based on "reader" reviews at, for example, Smashwords (unless I happen to know the reviewer) or Amazon.

It just so happens, for those interested, that this is the topic of discussion at my blog today (Book Reviews & Reviewers: Deciding Which Reviews to Trust) and last week (The Missing Ingredient: Quality Control in Indie eBooks).

hmmm...i guess it's harder to find quality reviews for m/m work but i usually look at a lot, though it really just boils down to the grammar, for me. like i said, i'm an easy reader to please. it's just that incorrect grammar makes it harder to really get into the story.

[Joykins]

I've been burnt by good reviews from a site I usually receive quality recommendations from. But generally I want to get 2 things from a review:

1) is the basic plot/setting/character situation something I am basically interested in?
2) are the flaws mentioned in any negative review something that will really spoil the book for me? In this case, negative reviews are actually more helpful than positive ones, as long as they are informative.

[joycedb]

I think many people are timid about bucking a trend. If everyone else says a book is good and they didn't like it, they wonder if, perhaps, they're the odd one out. So they don't leave the unflattering review.

As for plot holes, too many of the established authors aren't even edited anymore. The thinking is that they're too big and too famous to have written a stinker. Not true, as many of us can attest to.

Joyce

[spellbanisher]

Generally, I try to find reviewers whose taste's accord with mine. This takes a little bit of work, however. I do this by making a list of five or ten books that I really enjoy, and then skimming over the five star reviews of those books. If I see the same reviewer pop up several times, I'll read their review to see if they are able to articulate the redeeming qualities of the novel. They don't have to like the book for the same reasons that I do, but they do have to be able to thoroughly evaluate the book without sounding like they are blurbing it. If they meet this test, they become one of my trusted reviewers.

I don't need reviews most of the time, however, because most of the fiction that I read are classics. Any book that is continued to be read after many generations must have some transcendent redeeming qualities; all I have to do is find those nuggets. If I fail to get any value out of the book, the fault lies with myself, not the book.

Most of the modern books that I read are idea books, like the works of Neal Stephenson or Cory Doctorow. I occasionally read other kinds of books, but not usually because of reviews. For instance, I recently read The English Patient because I saw and loved the movie.

Most of the modern books I read are nonfiction, and if I am considering a nonfic book I'll try to find reviews of it in academic journals.

[spellbanisher]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I'm with Harry on this one with some exception. I do rely on reviews in the New York Review of Books (and in the past on the London Review of Books) and a couple of other sources -- but not the New York Times Book Review, whose reviews are much too superficial to be of value these days -- because these review avenues, over many years, have earned my trust. Under no circumstance do I buy or not buy a book based on "reader" reviews at, for example, Smashwords (unless I happen to know the reviewer) or Amazon.

Anis Shivani actually has an article today completely trashing the New York Times Book Review. I have never read the review, but I find Shivani's writing vigorous and entertaining. It is called "The Death of the New York Times Book Review: And Why That Is a Very Good Thing for Books."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-s..._b_840371.html

He makes four general points.

1. Limited Range of Books: "An enormous range of innovative fiction and poetry issues forth from the nation's vibrant independent presses, yet the Times studiously ignores these books in favor of the few hyped-up books from the major commercial houses centered in New York. The South, the Southwest, the West, and to a certain extent the Midwest, might as well be foreign lands, despite their literary productivity."

"The same applies to nonfiction. The university presses produce the overwhelming majority of worthwhile books in the social sciences, humanities, arts, and sciences, yet they are almost completely unrepresented in the Times's review pages. The major houses tend to ride the trends, promoting conventional wisdom rather than challenging it..."

2. Limited Range of Opinions: "Anything radical--meaning, anything that goes against the peculiarly subdued elite New York liberalism, any radicalism of the left or the right, any questioning of the basic rightness of institutions--is treated with derision by the reviewer.

The book review becomes, in effect, a mechanism to screen out incorrect political opinion. This is one reason innovative fiction and poetry finds no place in the Times's review pages: by definition the territory beyond domestic realism is where the institutions of society are being bombarded, by radical and anarchic and individualistic forces--namely, out-of-control writers."

3. Limited Range of Reviewers: "This is a perennial difficulty in book reviewing, yet the Times has turned it into a subtle system of patronage and servitude, a carrot and stick approach that perpetuates an incestuous system of backslapping and mutual admiration, rather than any independent judgment of the quality of books under review."

4. Limited Range of Tone/Style/Language/Attitude: "Almost any review in the Times's pages will prove this point. The reviews lack any individual voice, any eccentricity of tone and attitude--all in keeping with the general bland liberalism. Ideally, reviews should excite the imagination, create a stir about the book in question, whether it's a good book or a bad one--the reviewer should have an opinion, first of all, if the review is to mean anything, but then the opinion must be expressed in memorable language. The review is a place for playfulness, fun, exploration, speculation, sarcasm, anger, rage, frustration, prejudice, mockery, hubris, restlessness, nihilism, adoration, sickness, joy, love, indeed any familiar human emotion."

"The formula is this: Say a few harmless (often downright irrelevant) words about the writer, his previous books or his recent successes, say some meaningless things about what a book in the given genre means (reiterating the point of view of the reviewing committee at the Times), then launch into an extended précis of the plot or narrative, with the subtext that, now that the reviewer has adequately summarized the book, the reader need not tackle it at all, and end with a few bland comments about the posture of the review just concluded."

"The format all but forces smart people to say stupid things."

"Commercial interests conveniently merge with political bias to create a propagated landscape of erosion and waste, hiding the real vibrancy of books in America. The books that end up in the Times's Top 100 or Top 10 every year are simply the ones with the most advertising muscle and public relations hype behind them."

"To take another example of constriction, poetry has been almost entirely eliminated from the Times's pages, setting a terrible precedent--except in capsule roundups that betray the reviewer's pettiness, or the occasional snark attack by one particular critic who seems to love his enemies as much as he hates them; it's an inside game, after all, and no wider audience for poetry is solicited by these acts of willful masochism.

The rare poetry coverage belongs only to mainstream stars..."

"Instead of cosmopolitanism in taste, what we have is a dastardly parochialism, all the worse for its aura of invincibility. The New Yorker suffers from the same consistently middlebrow tendency, favoring the lightweight and superficial, and in both cases the affliction is aggravated by its presumption of elite taste..."

He does conclude on somewhat of a positive note:

"The bright spot on the horizon is that the future of book reviewing, in the age of the Internet, will be nothing like what the Times has propagated over the years: reviewing in the imminent future should be more open-ended, interactive, democratic, transparent, authoritative, credible, opinionated, stylish, argumentative, deep, and controversial, or at least more so than the Times has ever shown any inclination to be. In the last ten years, as the Internet came of age, the Times, rather than becoming open to the possibilities of the medium, seemed to double down on its lackluster prose, pushing a top-down image of the reviewer dispensing frictionless wisdom (a podcast by itself doesn't create excitement, if the general rule about discouraging readers from exploring unfamiliar material remains in effect, and if the bland tone of the printed text carries over to audio and video). "

I think it is worth a read.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

hmmm...i guess it's harder to find quality reviews for m/m work but i usually look at a lot, though it really just boils down to the grammar, for me. like i said, i'm an easy reader to please. it's just that incorrect grammar makes it harder to really get into the story.

Some good writers take liberties with grammar, so it's hard to say whether it's a style issue or just plain error. If it's a technical manual or business document, that's one thing, but in fiction often what's "correct" is determined by the author. Cormac McCarthy doesn't use quotes. He also refuses to use semicolons, amongst other things.

In your case I'd recommend staying away from Riddley Walker, by Russel Hoban:

"Its very qwyet and small thru the hisper of the rain its like it ben pickt up ever so delkit by the wind the way you myt lif a keepaways egg from a ledge on a clif and clym down with it only this here wind egg it hatches in my ear and littl qwyet words come out of it."

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

It is becoming standard operating procedure. False reviews are even more widespread at travel sites, such as Trip Advisor. You can't believe anything you read anymore.

I have not noticed it. The problem I have with tripadvisor is Americans that give European hotels very low grade to hotels that are perfectly OK. So when you have to really check who have given the grade. It is probably a combination of entitlement and what people are used to in the US with respect to hotels that generates these misleading reviews.

[Giggleton]

I don't see anything wrong with whatever the NY Times Review of Books decides to review or for that matter anything that they choose to write in their reviews. It is up to no one but the NY Times when choosing what books to review.

Some people probably swear by the reviews in the NY Times and "purchase" those books that are reviewed by such an "authoritarian" authority.

Reviews are written by individuals for individuals, there are exceptions of course. What exactly does this mean?? Well for one thing that reviews are going to get much more tailored to your individual profile than they have in the past.

How many reviews does a book really need? It depends upon how many you are willing to read.

Some in this thread have talked of not being being swayed by reviews but I feel they are not paying enough attention to the reviews and the effect that reviews have on the subconscious. There are more things in heaven and earth...

We process all information, but only cogitate upon what our brain considers necessary. What I mean is these words here <-- They are having a far greater effect upon your psyche than you realize. Much more so for a review that is finely crafted.

I trust everyone equally and strive to not base decisions based upon past or present actions, it's all about the future!!! That said I treat all reviews as coming from the same source, the instantaneous infinite universe. Where else would they come from if not from there??

Also, I feel that all books should be subjected to a far stricter quality control before being released onto the various marketplaces. This way we might get around that pesky grammar problem. This quality control will only work if all of us take part in the QA process though. FUN TIMES AHEAD FOR ALL!!

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Should I be hypercritical or extremely gushy? Consider this response from an author after I sent him my review prior to the reviews publication,

"I wish that you placed your last line—the fact that you enjoyed the novel and laughed--at the beginning of your review. As written, I don’t know that anyone would read beyond some of the criticism. I hope that you will consider some modifications to your review —I do not think that what I suggested would compromise your viewpoint—only make it more balanced. You said that you enjoyed the book—please give other people the chance to enjoy it as well."

Is the true purpose of a review to get the browser to click the button? Or to get the browser to not click the button? That is the question.

I've seen this mentioned before- this idea of sending a review to the author before publishing. I think it really taints the honesty of the review. That being said, I do point out both what worked and what didn't work (for me) in the review, and I always start out with a positive first. I also point out when the book needs to be edited, often giving specific examples. If I don't mention anything about the grammar or a need for edit, then the book was (in my estimation) fine in that regard. So I agree with another who said "just be honest."

WRT to a bunch of great reviews listed and I have a totally different perspective, I've had that experience, too. So I always check out the "other" reviews by those reviewers. 9/10 times, the individual has ONLY reviewed that book, or books by that author. It's a plant. Some authors seem to have more friends (or more time to create sock puppets) to help out in the review category.