I never think twice about reviewing a product. Want to know what I think of my Honda Hybrid? I love it. Want to know what how the pistol-grip Dremel works? It doesn't. But books are something else entirely. Reviewing a book is hard for me because I really hate to hurt people's feelings and I know that even people who write really, really bad books work hard at them and send them off into the world believing they are wonderful.
On the other hand, if a book is chock full of ghastly grammar, plodding plotlines or atrocious alliteration, shouldn't other readers be warned before plunking down their money?
You may (or may not, depending on what loops you are on) have heard the bruhaha about a certain author who went so far as to track down the personal information (name, address, family names, etc) of a woman who gave her book a mere three star review on Amazon. That's after chastising the reviewer in the comments section of the review and recruiting people to vote that the review (three stars, remember, not one) be removed as abusive. And there are other authors, rather famous ones, in fact, who are also known to "game the system" by having friends go in and post 5-star reviews whenever negative reviews pop up.
I rarely read Amazon reviews because for the most part I find them utterly useless. Unless I am trying to get a plot summary, of course, in which case, there's always back matter masquerading as a review by "Harriet Klausner." I do read Janice Harayda's One Minute Book Reviews, though she mostly doesn't review genre fiction, so I rarely read the books she examines. She does, however, do wonderful children's book reviews on Saturdays, where I collect present ideas for my various nieces and nephews.
John Connolly said something about reviews that's stuck with me now for over two years:
I can’t remember the good things that were said about my books because, in some deep, dark place inside of me, I didn’t quite believe them and so they didn’t stick in my memory. I can, by contrast, probably recite sections of the bad reviews verbatim. They stung because in another deep, dark place inside of me, I believed that they might be true.
(March, 2006--as with most things he writes, the whole post is worth reading, especially the chunk on bland reviews and internet reviewing)
So today, as I was about to add a book to my LibraryThing library and give it a mere three stars, which--for this author--would be a decidedly low mark from me, I started to wonder about whether that author had a LT account, and whether she'd be upset. I still think the book deserves three stars because it's part of a series, and there's far too much focus on stuff that happened earlier in the series, but now I feel a bit awkward. After all, I read Tess Gerritsen's posts about how upsetting she finds bad reviews.
What about you guys? Do you read reviews? Write them? Would getting a negative review upset you more if it were "this book sucks" or if it went into detail about the problems? Is "what a fab book" sufficient praise, or would you prefer more specific compliments?
UPDATE: People asked about the original story for of the Amazon fight, and Dear Author has conveniently posted a timeline.
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