Thank you, Karen, for inviting me to share my book in your newsletter today and to write a blog entry. I thought I might touch on a topic that is important to readers as well as authors—reviews. These are my personal, unvarnished opinions.

As an author, I have a love/hate relationship with reviews. When a new book is released, nothing feels better than to watch those 5-star reviews pile up, but nothing feels worse to see a 1-star review appear.

As a reader, I look at reviews to select books, and I feel compelled to write a review when a book strikes me in some way—either negatively or positively. I won’t begin to say that I’ve never left one star for a book. However, it’s important to have a valid reason for bestowing that curse on a book. If you ever leave one, you owe it to the author and fellow readers to explain yourself.

I’m sure we’ve all seen those reviews that say, “Just not my cup of tea.” To that, I say, “WHO CARES?” I don’t know you. I don’t know what kind of tea (or books) you like, so that kind of a review accomplishes nothing. On the other hand, when I see a well thought out one-star review that explains that a book needed editing and proofing, then I know to stay away. Or if the author made up some weird nonsense that ought to have been researched, I also know the one star was probably justified. Just because it didn’t suit your personal taste is not a good reason. The author wasn’t writing specifically for you, so get over it. Don’t damage the book’s rating with one star out of spite.

Everyone has their own standard for assigning stars, and some people are more generous than others. There are a few misers around who simply never hand out 5 stars to anything because it’s not the Best Book they’ve Ever Read. Again, I say, “Who cares?” If a book keeps your attention, and you look forward to sitting down and reading it as soon as you have the chance, then it’s a 5-star book in my opinion. I’ve assigned 5 stars before and still explained that I had a minor issue with a book, but for the most part it kept me entranced. Some people would say that ought to be a 4- or 3- star book, and I agree that that thinking has some merit. At this point, however, I think it’s important to weigh the entertainment value against some minor issue. If the issues pile up, stars are deducted.

The truth is, it’s not so much the stars that matter, although they feel nice when then yellow bars by your book are very top-heavy. The more important thing is the actual number of reviews. And this is tricky because Amazon periodically sends their robots on a killing spree and everyone’s reviews become depleted. Some of them show back up later, and many do not. Sadly, most of them are entirely legitimate reviews that have been tossed out because some authors have rigged the system and have tons of illegitimate ones assigned to their books. The good stuff gets tossed with the bad and those of us who are honest are hurt by this practice.

If you are a reviewer, and I hope you are, just remember to make your statements count. Think about how the book made you feel, how you enjoyed or hated the characters and why. Think about the writing style and the story-telling and how it made you see things in your imagination or feel things in your heart.

And always remember that the book itself represents months, and sometimes years, of work done by a real person with feelings and a family and a life. There’s no reason to spew vitriol when an author didn’t write a book exactly to your taste, and yet Goodreads is FULL of reviewers who think every book needs to please their specific palette. It’s incredible to me that anyone feels the need to lambast a book simply because the author chose to write in first-person or in third-person. That’s the writer’s style, and a reader doesn’t need to wade through an entire book to figure that out. One paragraph will clue you in, and Amazon has the sample views of every published book for that very reason.

Recently I read a review from someone who supposedly read a book twice. She assigned one star to it, and the only thing the review said was “-.5.” Frankly, I think that kind of person shouldn’t be allowed to leave reviews. It was uncalled for and mean- spirited. No one can learn from it, and other readers have no idea why she’d leave a remark like that. Is there a personal vendetta there? I’m sure the author poured her heart out while writing a story she loved so that other people could find some entertainment from it. She hired an editing and a proofreading team and paid for professional cover photography and design. It’s expensive to get a book published. It takes plenty of imagination, hard work, and a ton of confidence to release a book. The book certainly did not deserve a “comment” like that.

Every author I know can share a similar story for uncalled-for negative reviews. We just learn to move along.

I’ve also seen plenty of 5-star reviews from gushing readers who feel compelled to retell the entire story. I love the fact that the reader enjoyed the book, but leave something for the next reader to find out, please! No spoilers unless you warn people first. There’s no reason to write an entire book report. Just a few sentences will do.

I personally hesitate to call anyone out for this practice, however, because I’m genuinely thankful for positive reviews.

So, my message to all potential reviewers is this: Please keep writing reviews. We need them to sell our books. But when you write one, think of the audience—other readers. Don’t spoil the fun for them, but let them know what kind of entertainment value the book provides. Think about the Real Person who wrote the book and how their feelings will be affected by your words. If you’re negative, be constructive about it. If you’re positive, tell everyone why.

Happy Reading, Ariella Talix