Do you give honest bad reviews?

1) Just move on. Just because I don't like a book doesn't mean others won't. It's probably not the fairest to readers, but it's fairest to the author.

But then, I don't get paid money for reviews. If I did, I would give it a one star and be honest.

Bonus question: If I only see five star reviews, I will discount them all, like an Olympic judge. Not everybody will like the same thing. See above.

I pick #1 and just move on. I rarely leave any reviews of books, and never bad ones. You never know who might decide to retaliate out of spite, or for that matter, who might be connected to whom. I imagine myself attracting the interest of an agent or editor...and then they Google around and find I trashed a book by one of their authors. Might kill my chances.

As for the 5-star reviews, you just don't know. Lots of times, they're from friends, family members, or other authors from the same publisher. But sometimes, they come from people who genuinely connected to something in the book despite whatever flaws it has.

I think my last scathing review of an individual book was at least seven years ago, for a dragonshifter novel so bad I wanted to neuralyze away my memory of it.

Rating and reviewing bad books is not worth my time now, given the retaliatory and litigious bent of many new authors. If the book honestly rates a 1 or 2 star review on Amazon or GR, I simply move on without rating or reviewing it. I usually never even buy or borrow it - online sample texts will reveal all I need to know. I'll only review a book if I think it merits a 4 or 5 star review.

I will notice and skim 5 star reviews. The ones left by actually enthusiastic readers have a much different tone than the gushers left by friends/family/writers' group peeps.

I pay much more attention to 3 and 4 star reviews, because those seem to be the most thoughtful.

Reviews are meant to help people make smart buying decisions.

I do all my book reviews upon the idea of why or why not people should spend their money and time on it. If it's shit, I'll say why it's bad and warn others if they share my concerns that they shouldn't read it. If it's great, I'll say why that is.

I've given very few five-star glowing reviews, yet always with some caveats. I rated them five-stars because those books are worth every penny and second. I've given heavy one-star reviews before, not bashing the author or the book, but telling possible readers why they shouldn't waste their time and money--many of these were given to me by self-published writers, oddly from philosophical sections... I don't understand why.

When reading reviews: I tend to skip over "joke" reviews, reviews that open with summaries like "professional/expert" reviewers give, five star reviews that people are pretty much throwing up happiness and rainbows over the book, and one star reviews of bitching and complaining.

Bonus: It depends. Some elements can be polarizing, sometimes the genre can. I find that the more reviews, the less polarized (or more natural) the review community becomes in general.

Should clarify: I only review books that I have purchased or were given to review. I would not read a small sample, like a preview, not like it, and review it.

If I intended to give a review at all, I would regardless of what I thought of the book. I guess I've never understood the "if you can't say something good..." philosophy. You're not writing a review for the author. And yes, someone else might like it, but others may dislike the same things you did, and you'd save them money and time.

I only give reviews when I am in absolute love OR hate with the book. Bad writing doesn't make me passionately hate the book. A shitty plot, or an indulgent one where the author is obviously in love with his own writing and/or character, yes. In that case, I would write a negative review, but I draw the line at trying to teach the author how to write as well as personal attacks at the author. What do I care whether the author takes a writing course? There are so many good books out there waiting to be read, if a few authors turn out to be terrible writers, it's really not a great loss to me.

It's been a lot of years since I wrote reviews, but, no, I never write terrible reviews. What's the point? Beside, I really could. If a book was bad enough to rate a horrible review, I guarantee I stopped reading long before I reached the end.

I wanted to tell readers where they could find books they would love to read, not where they could find bad books they didn't want to read.

Reading horrible novels, and taking time to write reviews for those books, is a complete waste of life.

I'd give an honest review stating that my main objections are not related to the plot but the utter lack of editing...

Though I might be a bit biased.

shadowwalker said:

If I intended to give a review at all, I would regardless of what I thought of the book. I guess I've never understood the "if you can't say something good..." philosophy. You're not writing a review for the author. And yes, someone else might like it, but others may dislike the same things you did, and you'd save them money and time.

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"If you can't say something good" was never teh point, for me. The point is why waste time reading a book you hate, and then waste more time writing a review of a book you hate? For me, life is far too short too spend a minute of it reading a book I don't like, or writing a review about a book I don't like.

The truth is also that bad reviews are meaningless. They don't do any good, they don't even really make anyone not buy the book.

Good reviews do help people, and also mean you don't have to spend a minute reading a book you hate.

I review pretty much every novel I read on Goodreads, mainly so I can keep track of how many books I've gotten to every year. Those are all honest reviews, so yes, some of them have been ranty-rant bad reviews of the book.

None of your listed options really apply, because all of them work on the assumption that the review is there for the author's sake.

I do not give one single bolus of excrement whether the author reads my review. I wrote it primarily for myself and secondarily for other people who might be thinking of reading the book too.

As far as I'm concerned, the writer is foolish to go looking at reviews. There be dragons subjective opinions. Some of it is gonna sting.

Jamesaritchie said:

"If you can't say something good" was never teh point, for me. The point is why waste time reading a book you hate, and then waste more time writing a review of a book you hate? For me, life is far too short too spend a minute of it reading a book I don't like, or writing a review about a book I don't like.

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Some of us like reviewing, though.

The truth is also that bad reviews are meaningless. They don't do any good, they don't even really make anyone not buy the book.

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Oh, I know for a fact my reviews have caused some people not to buy a book.

Not a lot - I'm sure I have never had any impact on a book's overall sales (nor is that my intention), but a lot of people do read reviews when deciding whether or not they want to read a book.

Good reviews do help people, and also mean you don't have to spend a minute reading a book you hate.

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I'm a stubborn finish-what-I-started reader. It's very rare that I dnf a book, and if I do, I note that in my review.

If I don't finish a book, I don't review it, period.

If I do finish, it's fair game. A review is supposed to be an honest reaction to a story. If my honest reaction is that I didn't enjoy it, I don't see why I should be intimidated from sharing that... especially as I myself read reviews, top and bottom, to help me make reading choices. If you only ever see happy-good-lovey reviews, you're getting a skewed perspective.

When I post a review, to my site or (sometimes) Amazon or elsewhere, I give a rating, and I try to explain what I thought of the book and how I arrived at that rating. And, yes, editing/proofreading (or rather lack thereof) can affect the rating - though poor editing is, in my experience, often indicative of poor writing in general. I'm reading one right now - which got pretty good reviews on Amazon, BTW - that has my inner editor curled in a fetal position, among other issues... (Kinda committed to finishing at this point, unfortunately. Once I post it on my blog, I feel an obligation to myself.)

Jamesaritchie said:

The truth is also that bad reviews are meaningless. They don't do any good, they don't even really make anyone not buy the book.

Good reviews do help people, and also mean you don't have to spend a minute reading a book you hate.

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James, I have to question what you mean. Perhaps this is due to the confusing wording of the thread, as "bad" should mean "negative".

Surely, negative (one-star) reviews are meaningful as they can alert consumers that the product is not to their liking or faulty. I can't see how "positive" reviews would alert others to this.

Osulagh said:

I can't see how "positive" reviews would alert others to this.

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"I'm POSITIVE this book sucked giant green galactic moose."

Jamesaritchie said:

"If you can't say something good" was never teh point, for me. The point is why waste time reading a book you hate, and then waste more time writing a review of a book you hate? For me, life is far too short too spend a minute of it reading a book I don't like, or writing a review about a book I don't like.

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I would definitely review a book that was so bad I couldn't finish it. I would say that I couldn't finish it and why. That, to me, would be the most useful review to read. Frankly, writing a review of any sort could be seen as a waste of time, but if you've spent time reading and are the sort to write a review, why shouldn't other readers know if you didn't like a book as much as if you did?

Personally, I think reading reviews is a waste of time. I just want a summary so I know if it's even a book I'd be interested in. Who cares what a perfect stranger thinks of it?

I admit I have left brutally honest reviews, before. If I'm spending my hard-earned food money on a book, it better damn well not be full of punctuation errors, and amateurish writing. That said, I won't buy a book if I can't download the first few chapters free.

Jamesaritchie said:

The truth is also that bad reviews are meaningless. They don't do any good, they don't even really make anyone not buy the book.

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Disagree. I, and other people I know, have chosen not to buy books plenty of times precisely because of bad reviews, so speak for yourself.

Angry Guy said:

5) Write a Jay-Sherman-esque flaying that will have the writer pull the book and never write again (note: I'm adding this one just for completeness. I don't think it's a serious alternative)

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I usually do this, though I don't really attack the author - I do shamelessly butcher the work. If I sincerely feel it sucks, I say so. I'm not the "Bless your soul" kind of person who smiles and walks away, much less if I paid for it.

I recently read "Sweet Jealousy", a free "erotic" novel which came in parts. Sice I had read the first 80 or so pages of "50 Shades of Bleh", I knew this was a way too blunt attempt to share in the latter's success. While I'm also trying to write something on that bandwagon for a quick buck, it's NOT, unlike SJ, about an insecure office/agency chick with a female roomie, getting abused, errr seduced by her sexy, enigmatic boss. While it was free, I refuse to just look the other way at so much blatant copycatting, executed even shittier than the original.

The only time I wouldn't give the very low rating is if it's some tiny deal that looks like someone's big dream, such as if the only other review is from their mom or something. I wouldn't feel good about that so probably just wouldn't rate/review it at all.

I don't review books on Amazon because Amazon has a thing about people reviewing in the same genres as they write. But elsewhere, it depends on the book. Sometimes I write a review. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes it'll have details about why I hated the book. Sometimes it'll be short. There's not a single answer really.

I don't usually reference other reviews in my review, because I'm not reviewing the reviews.

Reviews are helpful. I rely on them. Often there isn't much more to go on. So keep them coming and be brutally honest. Save that flattery for your swain or lass.

Like Polenth, I'm annoyed that Amazon doesn't think I can be an impartial judge of *my own genre*, which I've read for nearly four decades. So I no longer review directly on Amazon. I might write Goodreads reviews. Longer reviews go on my blog, which is linked to Amazon, Goodreads, and my Tumblr account.

Still, I rarely waste my time in a negative review, unless it's part of a longer 'case study' comparing or contrasting other works.