Prompt 5: Reviewing Reviews

The reviews on the Holly Rayner novel didn’t paint much of a picture of the novel nor did they really give an idea of what the story would read like. I understand a large aspect of a review is to give your opinion on the story, but the reviews seemed unprofessional and lacked information. I cringe every time I read a review where the author states how long it took them to read a book. This is such a subjective/dependent variable and not one that I’m going to base whether I read a book on. Based on the reviews even if this was a great book, I wouldn’t be so inclined to purchase it for a library collection. I also did not gather the suspense aspect of this romantic suspense novel. Whether it was just left out of the reviews or the book doesn’t really fit the genre I couldn’t figure out.

I think it can be a little unfair the certain books get a lot of coverage and lots of reviews written about them while other books get little to none. The quality of book or the enjoyment a reader might get out of a book is not dependent on how much exposure the book gets, and I think this can hurt great books that never get to be part of the ‘lime light’ and probably diminishes the possibility of readers expanding horizons simply because they don’t know what’s out there besides what they read about. I also think this affects a library’s collection in the same way. Too many books are published for Libraries to be aware of all books, it’s unrealistic and unfathomable. So, libraries must depend on reviews, publishers, and media to know what books are coming out, what is popular, and what they need to stock their shelves with. If reviews are not written about certain books or one genre does not get as much exposure as another, I think this will affect the library’s collection.

I do not think that it’s wrong that some review sources do not publish negative reviews. All books published have some value and will interest some readers, regardless of if a review is negative or positive I think the type of audience that will be drawn to that book will be evident in the review without having to bash certain aspects of why on reader did not like it.  In addition to this we all know that other resources DO print negative reviews and for a more balanced opinion of how readers felt about the book they can seek out multiple sources. I feel like regardless of if a review is negative or positive I am able to determine from what they liked or didn’t like how I will feel about the book.