My opinion on; reading reviews !
Good Morning !
Haven’t we talked about reviews on here before ? Yes we did !
However, if we recall, it was about my #UnpopularOpinions about writing them.. Not really about reading them 😉 Which is exactly what I wanna converse more in dept with y’all today !
As a book community, we all know that reviews consist (or used to consist) a vast majority of what we post, doesn’t it ? But how do we really feel about them?
Of course I do post some reviews too, my last one being dated from just the other day, but I do see book blogging as something so much more than just reviews over reviews… to me, it is so much more about talking about books in so many different ways: tags, conversations posts, recommendations.. it’s about engaging and chatting with our blogging friends and readers, which you cannot really do as much of thoses with reviews in my opinion.
Saying I don’t read reviews would be a lie, but let’s say it’s not my “go-to” posts to check out.. I’m more leaning forward said type of posts I mentioned earlier, or even memes.
Maybe my opinion is related to the fact I don’t rely onto another person’s review of a book to decide if I wanna read it or not; as I so much more prefer to see for myself as I know everybody won’t read a book the same way and opinions will most likely differ. A blog which contain solely book reviews is less likely for me to be commenting often than a more diverse-filled blog like mine would.
Why would I choose to read and comment on a book review ?
A good 95% of the reviews i’d wanna jump onto and read are from books I’ve already read (and usually loved), and I wanna see what another person picked up from it. I wanna see what part of that book make them feel or think, I wanna see if I can fangirl a tiny bit with them in the comments, and most of all, I wanna see which quote they liked best.
Maybe they didn’t liked it, and that’s absolutely fine. As I said, we don’t read the books the same way; our personality is making a great difference on how we see things. On some occasion, another reader’s review might had made me think in a different way that I haven’t had before, and I realize some things I didn’t back when I had read it.
The other 5% is the books I recognized as something I wanna read already and am curious of what will be said about it; taking it as a grain of salt and not really base my opinion on it, but helping me see a different perspective and then base myself on what I know.
It also includes books I am just seeing for the first time and is drawn to it either by the title or the cover, and I wanna see what it’s about. I may add it to my “virtually-wanna-read” Goodread shelves, or I may not.
* Adding it to the list however do not mean I will really buy it or pick it up, it just means this book has gotten my attention. *
What is your opinions of reviews?
Do you enjoy reading them?
Are you basing yourself out of other people’s opinion ?
Are you agreeing with me?
omg same!!!!! I mainly only read reviews for books I’ve read and either loved or hated. If not, it’s generally for books I’m unsure about reading, and want to get other people’s opinions
I totally agree! I don’t tend to read reviews on books I haven’t read because I don’t want them to sway my opinion of the book. I like to go in with a clean slate, you know? I do sometimes click through and like the post tho, because we all gotta get them views!
I’ll be the different one here: I still read reviews all the time, and try to figure out if the book is worth the time/money I would put into it. I’ve got a full time job, time eating hobbies, and even if I do finish a book in a sitting, usually, I don’t like getting 3 chapters in to just realize I don’t like it/it wasn’t what I was looking for.
But, I still go to look at other reviews when I am done to see what they thought.
Right, nothing wrong with that! It’s just not something I’d find enjoyable 😅
i enjoy reading reviews as i like to see how peoples views differ or are the same as mine 🙂 if its a book im unlikely to ever read i might not read the review, depends on the blogger tho too
Also right! Though a good majority of the hyped books I know im not gonna pick up as it’s not my thing and/or I fear I might not understand all thats going on 😅
I completely agree with you on this. My reviews are some of the funnest posts to write but also some of the posts that get the least amount of attention (which is totally fine!!!) I also read mostly reviews for a) books I’ve read and loved; b) books on my radar; c) negative reviews (this is a guilty pleasure of mine…)
Mh! The c) is quite interesting .. im sure some negative reviews can be quite hilarious! Mine are more.. neutral toned and why it didnt worked for me, not too « negative » per say
to be quite honest, I spend a little more time reading reviews just because I know they don’t get as much attention and I want to support blogger friends 😜 and it’s definitely interesting to see all the different approaches people take to writing reviews, though I don’t think that it’s substantially affected the way I do mine? who knows though.
I’ve definitely noticed that reading reviews right before/after I read a book can impact how I feel about the book, so I try to avoid that. occasionally a review for a book I’ve never heard of will catch my eye and those are always fun to find, but they’re definitely more of an exception than the rule.
Yeah, I see where you are coming from.. I however don’t wanna comment just for comment and just pull a « blank card », and reviews are some things I dont really know what to say on that xD specially if I haven’t read it/isn’t looking forward to reading it 🤷🏽♀️
that’s fair! sometimes I struggle to find something to say, in which case I may just not comment because I also don’t like leaving meaningless remarks 😅
I mainly read reviews for books I’ve read, to see what other people have said about them. Sometimes I click on reviews for books I want to read, but those I skim through to avoid anything that might be spoilers lol.
I don’t mind spoilers, but otherwise; yep yep same!
I do read reviews but thats to figure out whats the popular opinion before i decide to read it myself. But the reviews I post once i read the book is all mine. The others don’t influence me. I do check other reviews once I have posted them to see a different opinion later on. just to see if they agree or not 🙂
Yep, I love to do that too !
Thing is, I already know the “hyped books” like six of crows, viscious, etc. is already not my cup of tea so erh .. I don’t need to read them to know im not interrested xD
But iam into fantasy so I wait till iam sure I want to read 😁
That’s fair !
I can’t agree more! Book reviews are an important part of a book blog but yes, it shouldn’t be all about it. And I have that same percentage for the reviews I click on. I either wanna see if the other person liked or didn’t like it as much as me or if it’s a review of my anticipated read. Loved reading this post <#
Thank you xx
Can you tell I was inspired for this one ? ahaha ironically got the idea after reading a review, and wrote all in the middle of the night XD
“A good 95% of the reviews i’d wanna jump onto and read are from books I’ve already read (and usually loved), and I wanna see what another person picked up from it.” I agree with this 100 %.
I also rarely read book reviews about books I want to read because not everyone warn about spoilers.
right, to be fair spoilers are hard sometimes.. okay I may fear a bit too much on details ahah but the way I think, if it’s not on the “main plot” .. it should be okay? while some is thinking otherwise..
I think reviewers should add “might contain spoilers” if they can’t keep spoilers to themshelves. I do that sometimes when I really need to add spoilers, or even hide them so my readers can press it if they want to read the spoiler.
yeah, definately ! some people is just not mindful of it, I guess.. I try to keep mine as spoiler-free as possible.
Same here
I usually only read book reviews when I’ve already read the book and like you said, basically want to yell with the other person about the book and what they picked up in it. And my reviews are always get the least amount of engagement and are the hardest for me to write so WHY am I still writing them? MEH. We’re book bloggers. I guess that’s what we do? 😂😂😂
ahahaha yep, THATS RIGHT 😂😂
though mine are not too too hard to write as I basically write it same time as im reading, so it’s like, final based off a “collage” thing? but yeah.
I love to read reviews actually, but I know that a lot of people actually don’t enjoy reading them that much which is fair enough I guess… to each their own and read posts you enjoy more often than not. It’s always fun when the person has read the book as well because it opens room for more discussions!
My recent post: https://oliviascatastrophe.com/2019/01/the-upside-of-unrequited-book-review-giveaway/
Yes! When you wanna read/read it already it’s so much more simple to add a comment … otherwise just what can you say ?
I quite enjoy reading them and I love finding new books I never heard of.
I love reading reviews and they are my favorite kind of post to write! I make an effort to read & comment on as many reviews as possible to give them the support, but if it’s next-in-series on something I am not reading, outside of my typical genres, I usually just like & skim
I see! I understand what you mean, I guess im just so pecular on what I read.. and most that I see just isn’t something i’m interested in.
Book reviews are not my favorite posts to read. I used to for a long time, but my TBR list kept growing to the point where I couldn’t keep up anymore. I had to take a step back and it’s honestly the best decision for me. I still read some book reviews but not nearly as many as before.
Love this post so much, Kristina! I had a short time period (I say short but it actually lasted for all my 3 years I studied for my Master’s degree) where I didn’t read reviews, just because I didn’t have time. I barely had time to read tags and discussion posts, and for me reviews take a little bit more, especially for books I haven’t heard of or haven’t yet read. Personally I enjoy reading reviews now, because I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I have a select few trustworthy reviewers that share the same interests as me and I know that if they say a book is good, then it’s good. I also have learned to ignore certain opinions I read while I read the book, but sometimes that’s harder to do. I think it also depends on the book itself. I will admit though that there have been instances in which I’ve read a book just because a particular review either didn’t make sense or it somehow confused me. This is mostly true with negative reviews.