Some people read so they can hate

[Ravensknight]

Go to your profile page, and under your picture there is a bunch of data:
How many ratings [average in parenthesis]
How many reviews
Etc, etc...

My average is 2.97. Which means I enjoy most of the books I read. It also means that I am not ecstatic about every book. Which I find to be realistic. Not every book is Tolkien or Austen or Dickens.

[elemenoP]

Hey thanks! My average is 3.09. I'm actually surprised it's that high. I guess I like a lot of books, but I LOVE very few books (in fact I had no 5 stars in 2012). I am trying to have fewer 1-star books. I have hard time quitting books, and then when I finish, I'm annoyed that I didn't quit sooner. So I started an "abandoned" shelf and I'm trying to quit bad books instead of finishing them.

eP

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by faithbw

That's just chick lit. I actually don't know how many of the total books I've read have 3 star or higher ratings. That being said, why is it a waste of time? People read for different reasons. Who cares if they love all the books they read or hate them?

To each his own. I actually care enough to read only books I know I will love/like. Time is a currency of our lives as someone said, and I dont care to spend it reading books I wont like/hate.

I guess I'm just wondering why you care so much that she or I or anyone would dislike a certain amount of books in a certain genre. I'm still confused about that. Do you think she should write only positive reviews? I just don't get why you think she "reads to hate"? If you read a book completely or even only half way and don't like it, why is it wrong to give a 1 or 2 star rating? I don't think most people start most of the books they read thinking that they'll hate it and give it a bad review. I genuinely read books hoping I'll like them but sometimes that's not the case. Again, I'm just really confused why this annoys you so much.

It's not that I care, it's that I was surprised. Its not a problem if you give 1 or 2 star rating. What I find weird is that rating is accompanied by very very negative reviews thrashing these books, and than she keeps reading in the same genre giving only negative reviews with 1-2 star rating.

Another point is that 61% of the chick lit I read I give good ratings too. 60% of the fantasy books the woman on GR read she gave positive reviews to. That's still a majority. I mean how do you determine whether someone like a genre or not beyond and what your criteria for determining that?

Nope. It's not 60% of fantasy. She reads non-fiction, detective and chick lit. I haven't found a single 5 star rating and positive review for fantasy from her. And she keeps on reading it. That's what I found mind boggling.

As for having poor taste, I'll say that a lot of the books that I have enjoyed and given positive reviews to would be considered poor taste by some. So YMMV.

I'm not talking about guilty pleasure here. You wont write an awful review about guilty pleasure. You know its trash, but you don't mind it. Nothing wrong with that. But that's not what she's doing.

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

I just can't get over that she dissed "Mistborn"!!

Whatever her reasons, that's just nutty. If she is a feminist, it makes even less sense.
The main character is a girl who overcomes all kinds of social obstacles to accomplish
greatness - she even kills the uber-badguy.

Luck;
Ken

Apparently the girl had the audacity to fall in love according to her review of Mistborn. Everybody knows real strong women dont fall in love
As a matter of fact I just read this article today on that topic
http://karinacooper.com/psa-the-stro...haracter-myth/

Originally Posted by danskmacabre

Goodreads is very useful to read what a book is about and find similar books, but I take reviews with a pinch of salt.

Hear, hear. I'll drink to that.

Originally Posted by barutanseijin

Who knows? The rater in question may enjoy giving negative reviews of fantasy books that she secretly enjoys because she knows it'll get a rise out of others. In other words, she could be a troll. Or maybe she writes in the genre and wants to pooh-pooh writers she sees as competitors. Could be all sorts of motivations behind the low ratings.

I think Goodread ratings are kind of silly anyway. In essence you're summarising a book with a numerical rating.

Who knows indeed. The shock value is in 1-2 star ratings and reviews that trash the books.

Originally Posted by xg4bx

Not reading per se but from my perusal of video game message boards over the years I've concluded that nobody on said boards actually enjoys video games.

Is that so

Originally Posted by Fluribus

Ummm... Geralt... Have you gotten amnesia again? Have you lost your silver sword?

If she spends most of her time ravaging books, she probably doesn't have enough time to ravage the countryside. But... Then... Better safe than sorry. Uh...

I'm stumped. If the world's most prominent witcher doesn't know what to do...

Originally Posted by mobilelover

hey geralt yes some people are clearly not in the right state of minds I have read several books which I did not like but I never said those books were bad, if I came across a bad book I did not go beyond 10 pages why would I waste my time.

Who is this person any how please share her profile link here.

I really wanted to discuss the behavior, not the individual.

Originally Posted by Soldim

Don't those numbers represent a normal Gausian distribution?

I would only encourage people on GR that don't hesitate to give a rating of less than three stars. Some books are simply not good; those deserve a rating of one or two stars, even if the reader doesn't finish them.

I rather pick a book based on a five star rating from someone that doesn't hesitate to give low ratings to books he or she doesn't like than based on a high rating from someone that only rates books with four or five stars.

I dont know. Ratings themselves wouldn't shock me if they weren't coupled with hateful reviews.

Originally Posted by applesauce

I am addicted to the deathland books, I have read 30 of them now. They are trashie books and and that is being nice. I intend to read them all and enjoy my guilty pleasure, but seriously it would be wrong to give them at best more than 3 stars no matter how much I enjoy them. It would just be wrong.

applesauce

As I said, this is not about guilty pleasure. You wouldn't write a hateful review on that would you.

Originally Posted by glamourgenet

One- and two-star ratings, at least as far as Goodreads is concerned, aren't ratings which suggested hatred. Goodreads intends a two-star rating to be seen as 'meh' and a one-star rating to be seen as, quite neutrally, 'didn't like it'.

I'm somewhat choosy about what I read, and I can count on one hand the number of books I've read through which I've actively disliked, but even so my average rating on Goodreads is only just over three stars. I liked a number of books. I found a number of books suggested to me to illicit nothing more than 'meh' from me. I disliked a few. I loved a few.

Unless somebody has explained their rating system in their profile, I assume that they're following the Goodreads system, wherein even a two-star rating isn't all that negative.

Rating is not the problem if alone. Hateful reviews coupled with 1 star rating trashing everything from concept of the books I mentioned to the characters is what threw me off.

[treadlightly]

I frequently see 1-star reviews by the same people on Goodreads - I attribute it to there being people out there who just like to complain and they probably complain online because the people around them in real life don't want to listen to them anymore.

I only look at the average rating of a book to get a general idea of how good the book might be, but it is misleading for books in a series because people who didn't like the first/second book in the series probably quit reading, and only the fans are left reading #10, giving it a higher average rating.

Talking about review on Goodreads in general, why does the MR User CP give you an entry for your AIM ID (and I'm sure very few people use this anymore) and not a Goodreads profile entry? I'd love to follow reviews/ratings/currently reading for MR members that have similar tastes in books as I do - only if they chose to make their GR profile public of course!

[Ken Maltby]

Well... at least she is finding things better than "Sturgeon's Law" would indicate.

Luck;
Ken

[usuallee]

There are people out there that are just determined to be unhappy no matter what. I used to work in the hospitality industry. You'd learn to spot them. I could predict with a fair degree of accuracy when someone checked in whether or not there would be complaints about the room, etc. There were times that I felt sorry for the spouses of such unhappy people.

As far as goodreads, I happen to have a 3.45 average. It's not because I'm uncritical or have undiscerning tastes. It's mainly because I usually wait until I'm a good 100 pages in before indicating that I'm reading a book, unless it's a trusted author. By then I'm usually reasonably satisfied with a book or have long since discarded it. I do that because goodreads really needs to make it easier to mark a book as "read but unfinished". I find I have to remove the book entirely and then re-add it, if I want to rate it and keep it in my book shelves but don't want to mark it as "read". It's a hassle. That's a major shortcoming in goodreads, in my opinion. If anyone knows how to do that, please clue me in.

[Catlady]

It's easier to criticize than to praise, and usually more fun.

[Istvan diVega]

Originally Posted by usuallee

There are people out there that are just determined to be unhappy no matter what.

There certainly are. As a student, many years ago, I worked part-time as a waiter for a few months. Every weekend I was astounded by the number of people who went out on a Saturday night with the express purpose of having a really, really bad evening and making sure everyone knew about it.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by applesauce

I am addicted to the deathland books, I have read 30 of them now. They are trashie books and and that is being nice. I intend to read them all and enjoy my guilty pleasure, but seriously it would be wrong to give them at best more than 3 stars no matter how much I enjoy them. It would just be wrong.

applesauce

I've not read the Deathland books. I don't think I've even heard of them before. I'm flying blind here.

I don't think there's any requirement that a rating be objective. If the books manage to give you enjoyment, they deserve a good rating. Toss an extra star on them. Say, "If loving Deathland is wrong, then I don't want to be right."

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by applesauce

I am addicted to the deathland books, I have read 30 of them now. They are trashie books and and that is being nice. I intend to read them all and enjoy my guilty pleasure, but seriously it would be wrong to give them at best more than 3 stars no matter how much I enjoy them. It would just be wrong.

applesauce

I read them too. I think 3 stars is fair, they have some good authors writing them and they're fun reads but they aren't anything more than what they present themselves as: dimestore/truckstop pulp novels. They're great ''I don't know what I feel like reading but I want to read'' books.

[Penforhire]

I figure someone like who the OP describes just balances out the rabid fans who rate some drivel at five stars. I read some of the extreme reviews and wonder if we read the same book.

I checked my LibraryThing reviews. I give right around 3 stars on average. I notice that for my entire library of books the members show a bimodal distribution, higher numbers of people rating the same books as 2 or 4 stars than 3.

[QuantumIguana]

It depends on whether you see the ratings of the book as measuring "greatness" or how much you enjoyed it. If you enjoyed it, I see no reason to give it a lower rating.

[Geralt]

I think all 4 of you above posters are overlooking the fact that it's not just ratings (which would be nothing special by it selves) but the rabid, hateful reviews coupled with ranting which I found shocking in this woman's case.

[Xanthe]

Unless a book is really a train wreck in regards to plot, characterization, grammar, etc., I'd rather just put it aside halfway-read than bother to write up a negative review. If I'm not into a particular genre, then I'm not going to waste my time reading books in it. If I don't like a particular author's style, ditto. Reading is too subjective for one review to be the definitive word on the work.

I'll write up a negative review on a really half-assed piece of writing as a public service to other readers, if it doesn't deliver on its hype - and especially if it abounds with factual errors that should have been caught when it was being edited.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Geralt

I think all 4 of you above posters are overlooking the fact that it's not just ratings (which would be nothing special by it selves) but the rabid, hateful reviews coupled with ranting which I found shocking in this woman's case.

Since we've had no opportunity to read these reviews, it's pretty hard for us to comment on them. Is the reviewer throwing offensive personal insults at the author, or do you just disagree strongly with her response to the books?

Either way, Goodreads is for all readers, and (short of actionable libel) readers get to choose how they respond to books. If you don't like or agree with her reviews, don't follow her.