Good morning, y’all!
I started with no idea for this post.. however, i’m gonna go with some “twitter drama” i’ve stumbled on; I mostly arrive WAY too late in the aftermath.. causing me to not know what in hell is happening x)
but while scrolling my twitter feed late at night, I stumbled upon people saying that when a blogger had majorly 4 or 5 stars reviews all the time.. they just stopped believing said blogger’s opinions as there was just No. Way. someone can enjoy all they read.
Of course I have something to say about that!
** I do not have anyone in mind in this post, nor am I shaming anyone here — Just my grain of salt that bloggers, like me, who has LOTS of positive reviews is not *bought* nor anything. It is a possibility they are still being honest.**
Although I have a few 3 stars & DNF’ed reviews on my blog, I feel like I fall into being an easy target for this. My most given rating is 4 or 5 stars; just this year, the four books that I’ve read fall into that. A close follower is 3 stars; because to me it’s still a good read, while remaining average. Thoses are the books that I kind of go “erh 🤷🏽♀️” and won’t think about it twice. I won’t post a review under that, just because I mostly won’t have anything to say but « yeah, I just didn’t enjoyed said book », i’m also not thinking upon doing any more DNFed reviews; unless it’s arcs or books i’ve gotten from an author.
I sometimes feel like I don’t over-look my reading, unlike some others, where I don’t neccessarely see all the bad thing in a book? What matters to me is if I enjoy the ride or not, which I mostly always do (because who wanna read a book that they don’t enjoy?)
It’s easier for me to gush about characters and parts of books that I did enjoy, than to identify what just didn’t worked and why I didn’t enjoyed it. Way too many times, it’s due to the book being or having parts of genres I just don’t like — per exemple, Historical elements.
Possible reasons for one to have mostly high-rating reviews;
♦ They really do enjoy all the books they read, or mostly
♦ Highly researching every book before they do read it; or in the same vein, has a good and accurate idea of what kind of books they would like
♦ *may* not be the only book they’ve read, but for some reason decides to only show the positives ones.
We know bloggers aren’t paid to give reviews, we mostly still do it to help the book out and make it more read. I don’t think that a blogger who’s posting mainly positive reviews VS a more “diversified” rating one, that there HAS to be one worth more than the other .. However, everyone has all their different ways of reading a book; no book is really read twice — so only you know what appeals you in a book and maybe you’d relate more with the diversified rating one, but that doesn’t mean that the majorly positive rating one is in the wrong nor that their opinions are invalid.
I think that to really grasps the “all around” of a book, you need to read more than one review; if that’s how you choose to decide if you wanna pick it or not, I tend to just wing it and not check the reviews beforehand personally. Because different bloggers highlight different things — and it’s also interesting to see between positive and negative ones, because maybe something in a negative review is actually something you would enjoy; which happens to me fairly often ahah! 😅
Reviews are one of the things that it’s wierd to me to judge a blogger on; because the main purpose of a review is to give your own opinion; we all have different ones of those, and that’s absolutely fine! Both positive and negative reviews are needed in the community, but neither are realy wrong or right – as it’s all only people’s opinions.. there’s no “one true rating” or anything ..
What do you say, are you an easy high-rating blogger?
Do you tend to believe thoses high-rating bloggers, or deny their opinion? Why?
I am so guilty of giving really high ratings for books followed by three stars, I’m not usually prone to reading books I think I wouldn’t enjoy and usually if I don’t, there’s something that’s stood out to bother me which isn’t all too often. Anyway, I’m so glad you wrote this because I definitely feel self-conscious for always loving what I read but I can’t help it, I know what I like!
Ah thank you ! I’m happy im not the only one 😅 glad you enjoyed what I wrote and related to me aswell xx
Honestly, I try to avoid posting negative reviews on my blog. unless if it’s an arc then I kind of have to. but like other than that I keep my rating on goodreads then move on. I totally think that just because someone always rates smth highly it doesn’t mean they aren’t trustworthy. just like you said, they probably only pick up books that really really insterest them + have looked up reviews before reading. or just don’t wanna share negative reviews. the possibilities are endless!
Right? We don’t know everything behind the scenes, Or even if they did loved everything they read.. that’s still worthy.
Thank you so much for your comment xx
I’m guilty of giving mostly 4-5 star reviews. But I’m also pretty good at picking what I will and won’t enjoy. If the blurb is accurate to the book then 9 out of 10 times, if I like the sound of the blurb I’ll like the book. Usually the ones I don’t like are the highly publicised ones that people rave about because others are raving about it.
I relate to that aswell, though for the overly raved one I tend to read lots of reviews (that I usually don’t do) to see as many aspects as I can to try and evaluate if I’d like it or not instead of just going by the blurb
Couldn’t agree more that there’s no one true rating and I definitely think that everyone is different in how they review/rate books. I think it just comes down to getting to know the individual reviewer, rather than just going on ratings too much.
Ouuh yeah, definately. Basing yourself on the blogger and not the review itself, ie know which bloggers seems to have relatively the same taste as you do and keep an eye open for theirs!