The GRUMPY AUTHOR- SHITTY REVIEWS AND YOU
It's that time again. Yep, time for a rant from the Grumpy Author™. What's the subject of today's rant? Shitty reviews. Something I'm guilty of at times myself, so you don't need to mention it; I know, and that's part of why I'm posting about it and also why I rarely do reviews anymore.
Now, let's be clear on something right off the bat: a "shitty" review is not the same thing as a "negative," "bad," or "critical" review. Reviews are one part criticism/analysis and one part opinion, and just because one person doesn't like a book doesn't mean they should assume others won't or try to convince them they won't. A well-constructed critical review can help readers avoid things they don't want to read about, and even help the author clean up problems in future volumes of the same series or in future series they write. A "bad" review is not the end of the world and doesn't necessarily reflect terribly on the book or the author.
A shitty review, though, is when it becomes 100% opinion and 0% criticism/analysis. This is when the reviewer decides that instead of being a dissatisfied reader, they're now the Judge Supreme on all things literary, and they have passed judgement on the book in question. These people are the reason everyone in indie author circles says not to read your reviews. And quite frankly, it's crap, because as I mentioned above, bad reviews can be helpful if they point out real issues and/or make suggestions for fixing things that are problematic in a series. These types of reviews, though, are little more than attacks on the author or lengthy diatribes about why everyone else should hate the book without reading it and therefore not buy it.
Don't be that guy/gal. How can you avoid being that guy/gal? It's simple. Just keep these tips in mind when reviewing:
1) Your religious viewpoint does not represent the world as a whole. Attacking a book/author because the book has characters of a religion you don't agree with is about as effective as trying to convert someone by calling them a fucking idiot. There are a lot of faiths out there, and even if you don't believe in any of them, that's not a reason to pan every book that includes them and even insult the authors for having the "audacity" to mention them. This applies both ways. These types of comments don't make the book/author look bad, they make the reviewer look bad. And honestly, if it were up to me, you'd be able to leave ratings on reviews and the reviewers so people know who the trolls are on Amazon/Goodreads/etc., because they are LEGION.
2) Unless it's a biography, the book isn't about YOU. (And if it is a biography about you, I'd like to know why it's in the fantasy/sci-fi genres.) The people in books are not required to look like you, talk like you, act like you, believe the same things as you, and most importantly, do what you would do in any given situation, EVEN IF they're of the same race/sex/creed/nationality/etc. Unless it's an egregious self-insert, criticizing the way the characters look, talk, and act, especially if it's because they're not like you is an irrelevant argument. Get over yourself.
3) You're not auditioning for a job by writing a review. It takes only a cursory spin through the negative reviews of any popular book on Goodreads to see what I'm talking about. People writing term papers about how much a book sucks and why the author should be boiled in their own piss, complete with GIFs, links to Youtube videos, and whatever else. This is Douchebaggery in the extreme. It's one thing to point out what you didn't like in a book, and quite another to do a line-by-line evisceration like you're writing a script for Mystery Science Theater 3000. And I find the people who do this sort of thing almost always have a link to their blog or vlog or whatever else, so these "reviews" are really just traffic bait for other like-minded haters. If you're trying to build a "following" of any kind by being an asshole, guess what you're going to attract?
4) Don't take everything personally. This one is an important catch-all, because the person you're likely to verbally assault with your shitty review is absolutely going to take it personally if they happen to read it. I'm not immune to this as a reader; there are things I cannot stand to read in books, but even then, I try to write them off as "I didn't enjoy this because [it reads too much like an anime script, for example]" and move on. If there's something I find repugnant, I will mention that because, as I said earlier, that can help people avoid picking up a book that's going to offend them into leaving more 1-star reviews. I'm not talking about the kind of stuff in points 1 - 3, either, but the really big stuff like gang-rapes, explicit molestation scenes, and the like. Even then, I try to not make criticisms personal (and no, I don't always succeed because yes, I can be a douchebag too sometimes, as if I needed to tell you all that).
And that brings me to my final tip:
5) Avoid the backhanded compliment. What's the backhanded compliment? It's when you post a 4-star review where you have nothing positive to say about the book. So it looks like a positive review (hey, I gave it 4 stars!) but then you spend the entire time complaining. I don't know if people do this because they figure 4-stars are more likely to get read or if they honestly think it's flattering to say "It was pretty good except for this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this." Either way, a 4-star review (or even 5-star) shouldn't sound like a 2-star review when you've finished reading it.
In summary, recognize when your actual intent with a review is to try to destroy the author and their book. Ask yourself if it's really what you want to do, if the book really deserves it, and if it's going to make you look worse than the book you're panning.
Especially if you're an author, too.