Mean Reviews

I've had good reviews and bad reviews but only one really got under my skin. The reviewer gave away a major plot twist, no spoiler alert or anything. Still pisses me off to this day.

I have had some pretty bad ones that made me smirk when I read them

NonieMaus said:

I've had good reviews and bad reviews but only one really got under my skin. The reviewer gave away a major plot twist, no spoiler alert or anything. Still pisses me off to this day.

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This. I'd much rather have a snarky or 'mean' review, or even a troll review than a good review that gives a blow-by-blow and/or gives away a plot twist. Sheesh! I HATE those.

That was pretty funny! BA-donk ba-donk!

Ha!

Yes, it is better if you can smile a little at them.

I feel for this thread. So much. I received my first really mean review recently that it almost made me cry.

I guess I'm a real author now!

Exactly, Frey! It's like when you're learning to ride horseback and the master says you can't call yourself a horsewoman until you've fallen off ten times and gotten right back on.

My favorite review for a book of mine came from a magazine whose name we all know. It raved about the book, calling it terrific in all sorts of ways ... and then gave it three stars.

I'm still doing the mental head-scratch about that one.

Deb Kinnard said:

Exactly, Frey! It's like when you're learning to ride horseback and the master says you can't call yourself a horsewoman until you've fallen off ten times and gotten right back on.

My favorite review for a book of mine came from a magazine whose name we all know. It raved about the book, calling it terrific in all sorts of ways ... and then gave it three stars.

I'm still doing the mental head-scratch about that one.

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Mine was on Goodreads! A reader said that my publisher was "scraping the bottom of the barrel" where I was concerned. They gave me a one star review, of course.

I took it as a compliment. Obviously I affected them enough to leave a review, and I'm still doing well sales-wise, so I can't complain.

Then again, I also take reviews I see on Goodreads with a grain of salt. Well, I started to, recently...

I don't hang on Goodreads, though I have a page there. I'm told its <ahem> dependability has declined in recent times, and I'm told there are a lot of "reviewers" who'll leave a nasty review and a one-star in order to further some implied agenda.

I wish there were a better way, but while these sites refuse to police the drive-bys, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

It seems some people are more apt to post terrible reviews than good ones. Some people seem to go out of their way to tell everyone how much they disliked a book. They assign it all sorts of unflattering tags, I've seen some with several dozen or more unflattering tags, to further illustrate how much they disliked a particular book. I read one on Goodreads who said this was the 4th or 5th book she'd read from this author and she hadn't like any of them. And then went on and on about how awful it was with the addition of course of several dozen unflattering tags. I couldn't help thinking if she dislikes this author's writing so much why does she keep reading them? It's almost as this reviewer is looking for an excuse to go online and say terrible things.

All my reviews, not that have many, are bad with the exception of the ones from the people I know so my debut novel clearly wasn't well received, and it has the terrible sales to prove it. But that's another story.

romancewriter said:

I read one on Goodreads who said this was the 4th or 5th book she'd read from this author and she hadn't like any of them. And then went on and on about how awful it was with the addition of course of several dozen unflattering tags. I couldn't help thinking if she dislikes this author's writing so much why does she keep reading them? It's almost as this reviewer is looking for an excuse to go online and say terrible things.

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I've had this happen with my books! "I've read this entire series, even the free extras, and I've hated every single one. This one's the worst of them all." - My first thought was, lady, stop reading! Life is too short to read stuff you don't enjoy!

And then I had a moment of fear that it was my editor writing the review, or someone else who actually does have to read all the stories! But I don't think so. I think some people just like reading books they don't like. Not sure why...

Having read some of these nonspecific, no-plot-details, nasty reviews, I've come to the conclusion some of these people haven't read the title at all. They just feel motivated to diss someone else's work for whatever petty satisfaction that gives them.

I enjoy mean reviews, but I always feel bad for the author. I think I'm going to write my own "mean review" for my own book. Not to post the review anywhere, of course, but to laugh at in peace.

The thing about bad reviews is that you can take any book and make it sound bad.

These were great! Especially the one about Jesus watching. I hope if I am ever published one day, I can handle the bad reviews with grace and humor.

The thing I can't stand about Goodreads is that people can just rate and not review. That leaves room for the trolls to troll. They don't even have to read the blurb anymore to leave a bad review.

I hope if I ever get published, at least one person will say that they can't read my book with Jesus watching.

Satori1977 said:

These were great! Especially the one about Jesus watching. I hope if I am ever published one day, I can handle the bad reviews with grace and humor.

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That one hilarious! So Jesus saw you buy the book and that was ok? Also, the one with "This book has too much sex!" followed by "This book doesn't have enough sex!"

I got my first one star back in Feb. It stung, but soon afterwards, sales picked up and have remained steady ever since.

Roxxsmom said:

I hope if I ever get published, at least one person will say that they can't read my book with Jesus watching.

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I promise to write that review for your book if you agree to do the same for mine?

Sone people just like to be mean for the sake of meaning mean. To quote Taylor Swift, "Haters going to Hate." I like criticism but not cruel and mean comments. Sometimes I think people haven't even read the whole story, they are just lazy and for whatever reason feel like putting it out on your work. Now that I have written myself I understand the importance of never using mean works when talking about someone else's work (unless it I really, really that awful and offensive).

Just as an illustration -- after ANGEL WITH A RAY GUN came out, I got e-mails from two readers. One said: "Did you model Matt on an actual guy, and is that guy single, and if he is, can you give me his phone number? This is the man I've been looking for all my life!"

The other said, "I liked all of this book except the male MC. You should dump this character, rewrite from scratch. He has no excuse to be in this book at all, he is a horrible character and I can't imagine what you'd want him in this story for."

True beans.

Just goes to show that one reader's "wonderful" is another's "terrible" and you cannot take it all too seriously.

When I'm thinking of buying a book from an unknown writer, I look at the bad reviews. Very often the really bad reviews are the ones that convince me to buy the book. Now, this isn't always true but when it comes to romance novels, it's typically true as I like the hotter ones and they often get bad reviews specifically for that reason.

When I write a review for an ARC, I sometimes feel bad when I didn't really like the book or found a lot of flaws. So, I try really hard to start the review with positives and end with positives and hide the honest opinion about something I didn't like in the middle.

If I bought a book and didn't like it, I rarely leave a review unless it is really poorly edited, or is really offensive. It takes a lot to offend me but if something did, I am careful to say that I found it offensive and others may not. I can't stand it when I buy a book and the author didn't bother to have it proof read. A few errors are normal, but head hopping, changing tense, wrong words drive me crazy.

Mean reviews are a genre of their own and they have their own target audience (which often wouldn't have dreamed of ever reading the book in question in the first place and apparently enjoys being confirmed in their prejudices. Not very noble, but very human, I'm afraid.) And then there's me, who likes reading one-star reviews of her favourite books to marvel about the reviewer so completely missing the point. So if that's any consolation, the chance of the mean reviewer making an ass of themselves is absolutely part of the appeal.

I love to read the one-star reviews of acknowledged classics and bestsellers. It proves everyone gets mean reviews, yes, even Harper Lee.