Hotdog Book Reviewers

[namedujour]

Before the Internet, we were all more or less dependent upon professional literary critics, best seller lists, and word-of-mouth to determine whether or not a book was worth reading. You may not agree with a critic, but he or she had "qualifications" of some sort.

Now everyone with a keyboard has an opinion, and can make or break the sales figures of a book on Amazon.

While I agree that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, if you describe a yellow house as "purple", of what real use is your observation, except to others who are equally colorblind?

I've seen people trash books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." Obviously, most people know these reviews were posted by not-very-insightful reviewers because the books have really stood the test of time. Those reviews are easy to ignore.

More often, you see very good, less well-known books get hit with poor reviews - and how are you to know that the reviewer simply didn't "get" the book, or just didn't care for the story or the style? The same with reviews that are gushing, five-star recommendations for trash.

So I wonder this:

1) To what degree to you believe and depend upon reader reviews?

2) Do you make a conscious effort to keep your reviews objective? Or do you just write what you think?

3) Do you ever question your understanding of a book, if you totally disagree with what everyone else says about it?

I have a very hard time posting bad Amazon reviews. For one thing, I know the author is going to read it, and that I'm directly insulting someone. For instance, Anne Rice - even Anne Rice - was personally wounded, and very upset by a string of bad reader reviews for one of her books. She was hurt to the extent that she posted a very long open letter to all of her anti-fans on Amazon (I got a copy of it from my agent.) Anne was spitting mad - and very feisty! The hurt in that letter was palpable through her anger. She even posted her email address and home address, challenging unhappy readers to contact her. Her posting was quickly removed, but it made the point that even an icon is a person with feelings.

So I usually don't post a review at all, if I hate a book. I'm probably also kinder than I should be with books I only SORT of like. You only know I'm speaking my mind if the review is very detailed.

I also try to separate my expectations from what the book actually offers. If an author tries something new, I don't give the book a one-star review because she "betrayed her fans."

What are everyone else's rules for "believing" reader reviews, and posting your own?

 

[novella]

In my experience, the reviews in the NY Times Book Review are no more reliable than any other reviews. Most of them are written by writers who've written similar books. They are competing for the same market, and they are also playing the I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine game.

As with any opinion, I weigh what the person says according to how they express themselves and the substance of what they say. "it wuz gd, I liked it" does not get my attention.

A reviewer who's read an author's previous work and can analyze what they're reading in some broader context is worth listening to most of the time. I personally don't think any reviewer needs to have any credentials beyond their analytical skills, reading experience, and ability to express original thoughts.

I don't generally read Amazon's reviews, though. I think they're written by a load of loudmouth exhibitionists who like the sound of their own voices and want to have their 15 minutes at every possible opportunity.

On the other hand, Blog of a Bookslut is brilliant.

 

[Shade]

This is an interesting topic, namedujour. Generally, you can tell whether a review is worth giving time to by how it's written - does it go into detail, does the reviewer seem to know what (s)he is talking about, or is it just "I LOVED THIS BOOK!!" or "this book suxxx"? Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but there are ways of determining whether that opinion is worth heeding.

I wouldn't say that I question my understanding of a book if everyone disagrees - you either like a book or you don't - but it has occasionally made me try again with a book I didn't get into first time round (eg Lolita, which turned out to be a stomping masterpiece just like they all said), or realise that some books I don't personally like do have qualities nonetheless (and no, I don't mean Matthew Reilly ).

As for whether Anne Rice gets upset, well, blow her. She's big and ugly enough to take care of herself. I read her rebuttal too, and while it may have had an undercurrent of pain, it had a surface of overweening arrogance - you idiots just don't understand my stuff, you're not worthy of reading it - which is ironic when you consider that it's widely agreed among many of her fans that her work has really taken a dive in the last ten years or so. You'd think she might have learned from those negative reviews, but no.

I know what you mean though - Martin Amis spoke in the introduction to his collection of essays and reviews The War Against Cliché, about how one writer he wrote a bad review of nursed the grievance to his dying day. He points out that you're less likely to write bad reviews as you get older, partly because you're less likely to read things you don't expect to like, and partly because you realise how much people mind and how long they remember. In one case I recall, where a self-published author sent me a copy of his book, I absolutely hated it but posted a moderate, two-star review on Amazon (where I knew he would read it) and kept my vitriol - it really was terrible - for other forums he wouldn't be visiting. And so, no, I wouldn't mock Matthew Reilly (say) as I have done here, in a forum where I thought he might read it - I know that even not very respectable authors are just folks doing the best they can - but at the same time it's vital to be truthful about books you love and hate, so that other people can get share enjoyment you have got from a great read, or avoid the tedium of thumbing through some slope-browed bore-fest.

EDIT: Novella's post appeared while I was typing this : I agree!

 

[Stewart]

1) To what degree to you believe and depend upon reader reviews?

From reading reviews I can tell who knows what they are talking about. Anything written by someone that is highly illiterate while giving five stars to something (say, The Da Vinci Code) can be immediately written off as a review not worth bothering with. Likewise when the same creature awards one star with the phrase "dis book sux, man!!!!!!"

I'll only bother with longer reviews that give detail. There are many long reviews that tell you bugger all about the book other than the storyline. The detail should consider the prose, the pace, the style offering both good and bad points, if any.

2) Do you make a conscious effort to keep your reviews objective? Or do you just write what you think?

I write what I think. Annoyingly though, I've been diluting my venom of late and I still can't get my reviews of The Da Vinci Code onto Amazon; it's pissing me off and I may have to consider writing to them in order to get the prewritten response I, as a cherished customer, so deserve.

3) Do you ever question your understanding of a book, if you totally disagree with what everyone else says about it?

If the argument is good I can be swayed.

I have a very hard time posting bad Amazon reviews. For one thing, I know the author is going to read it, and that I'm directly insulting someone.

To hell with the author. If they write crap then that's their fault. You've wasted your money on them and you have every right to say their books are shit when you want. Why let them sit in relative luxury when they piss you off?

For instance, Anne Rice - even Anne Rice - was personally wounded, and very upset by a string of bad reader reviews for one of her books.

It should have encouraged her to consider her writing but, instead, she...

...was hurt to the extent that she posted a very long open letter to all of her anti-fans on Amazon.

They weren't anti-fans. They were fans - in Anne's case, a dying breed - and the ones that allow her to spend her days writing rather than flipping burgers. Those are the people she is writing for; their opinion is valid and not to be derided.


Out of interest, what did she do that made the fans mad? I used to read her once but her head disappeared up her arse and I wasn't looking forward to seeing the author's photograph in her next book with that being the situation.

 

[Shade]

Here's Anne Partridge's - I mean Rice's - letter to her critical friends - it was about Blood Canticle. I've taken out her email and postal address.

Seldom do I really answer those who criticize my work. In fact, the entire development of my career has been fueled by my ability to ignore denigrating and trivializing criticism as I realize my dreams and my goals. However there is something compelling about Amazon's willingness to publish just about anything, and the sheer outrageous stupidity of many things you've said here that actually touches my proletarian and Democratic soul. Also I use and enjoy Amazon and I do read the reviews of other people's books in many fields. In sum, I believe in what happens here. And so, I speak.

First off, let me say that this is addressed only to some of you, who have posted outrageously negative comments here, and not to all. You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it. And you are giving a whole new meaning to the words "wide readership." And you have strained my Dickensean principles to the max. I'm justifiably proud of being read by intellectual giants and waitresses in trailer parks,in fact, I love it, but who in the world are you?

Now to the book. Allow me to point out: nowhere in this text are you told that this is the last of the chronicles, nowhere are you promised curtain calls or a finale, nowhere are you told there will be a wrap-up of all the earlier material. The text tells you exactly what to expect. And it warns you specifically that if you did not enjoy Memnoch the Devil, you may not enjoy this book. This book is by and about a hero whom many of you have already rejected. And he tells you that you are likely to reject him again. And this book is most certainly written -- every word of it -- by me. If and when I can't write a book on my own, you'll know about it. And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself.

I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not a collaborative art.

Back to the novel itself: the character who tells the tale is my Lestat. I was with him more closely than I have ever been in this novel; his voice was as powerful for me as I've ever heard it. I experienced break through after break through as I walked with him, moved with him, saw through his eyes. What I ask of Lestat, Lestat unfailingly gives. For me, three hunting scenes, two which take place in hotels -- the lone woman waiting for the hit man, the slaughter at the pimp's party -- and the late night foray into the slums --stand with any similar scenes in all of the chronicles. They can be read aloud without a single hitch. Every word is in perfect place.

The short chapter in which Lestat describes his love for Rowan Mayfair was for me a totally realized poem. There are other such scenes in this book. You don't get all this? Fine. But I experienced an intimacy with the character in those scenes that shattered all prior restraints, and when one is writing one does have to continuously and courageously fight a destructive tendency to inhibition and restraint. Getting really close to the subject matter is the achievement of only great art. Now, if it doesn't appeal to you, fine. You don't enjoy it? Read somebody else.

But your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander. And you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies. I'll never challenge your democratic freedom to do so, and yes, I'm answering you, but for what it's worth, be assured of the utter contempt I feel for you, especially those of you who post anonymously (and perhaps repeatedly?) and how glad I am that this book is the last one in a series that has invited your hateful and ugly responses.

Now, to return to the narrative in question: Lestat's wanting to be a saint is a vision larded through and through with his characteristic vanity. It connects perfectly with his earlier ambitions to be an actor in Paris, a rock star in the modern age. If you can't see that, you aren't reading my work. In his conversation with the Pope he makes observations on the times which are in continuity with his observations on the late twentieth century in The Vampire Lestat, and in continuity with Marius' observations in that book and later in Queen of the Damned. The state of the world has always been an important theme in the chronicles. Lestat's comments matter. Every word he speaks is part of the achievement of this book. That Lestat renounced this saintly ambition within a matter of pages is plain enough for you to see. That he reverts to his old self is obvious, and that he intends to complete the tale of Blackwood Farm is also quite clear. There are many other themes and patterns in this work that I might mention -- the interplay between St.Juan Diago and Lestat, the invisible creature who doesn't "exist" in the eyes of the world is a case in point. There is also the theme of the snare of Blackwood Farm, the place where a human existence becomes so beguiling that Lestat relinquishes his power as if to a spell. The entire relationship between Lestat and Uncle Julien is carefully worked out.

But I leave it to readers to discover how this complex and intricate novel establishes itself within a unique, if not unrivalled series of book. There are things to be said. And there is pleasure to be had. And readers will say wonderful things about Blood Canticle and they already are.

There are readers out there and plenty of them who cherish the individuality of each of the chronicles which you so flippantly condemn. They can and do talk circles around you. And I am warmed by their response. Their letters, the papers they write in school, our face to face exchanges on the road -- these things sustain me when I read the utter trash that you post. But I feel I have said enough. If this reaches one reader who is curious about my work and shocked by the ugly reviews here, I've served my goals.

And Yo, you dude, the slang police! Lestat talks like I do. He always has and he always will. You really wouldn't much like being around either one of us. And you don't have to be.

If any of you want to say anything about all this by all means Email me at xxx. And if you want your money back for the book, send it to xxx. I'm not a coward about my real name or where I live. And yes, the Chronicles are no more! Thank God!

Lestat? Letwat more like.

 

[Stewart]

I have Blood Canticle wasting space on my shelves too. Last book of hers I tried to read was Blood & Gold (wherever it is these days) and I only got about 100 pages into it before deciding that it was utter toss.

 

[novella]

It is always a mistake to try to defend your work against criticism, unless the reviewer makes factual errors. I seem to remember Jonathan Franzen doing something like this during the Oprah-list kerfluffle. Rice is a crybaby, obviously. Phrases like "the achievement of this book" make her sound like a jerk.

 

[sirmyk]

I read this response from Anne Rice before. It sounds like she was really hurt from reader insults and slander. She should have chosen not to respond, but at least she provided a personal e-mail address for complaints and a way for readers to get their "wasted" money back. Damn, there's no smilie for a crying baby....

 

[namedujour]

I know that even not very respectable authors are just folks doing the best they can - but at the same time it's vital to be truthful about books you love and hate, so that other people can get share enjoyment you have got from a great read, or avoid the tedium of thumbing through some slope-browed bore-fest.

For me, it's kind of a balance between saying what I think, and knowing as many authors as I do. It's a hard balance to strike, sometimes.

When I was younger, I didn't have any qualms about trashing people's efforts. Then I got older, and met the people I might have been inclined to trash, and got a conscience.

For the past few years, I've been up to my nose in authors. They're everywhere in my little universe. Some of them are brilliant, but totally undiscovered (I'm going to plug Jack Mauro here - his "Spite Hall" is a treasure.) Others were really sub-par writers, but delightful people.

So I'm really at a disadvantage, emotionally. The prevailing wisdom is that writers should have a thick skin - this is true. You have to separate yourself from your creations in order to improve and hone your craft.

It's also a betrayal to other readers if you don't warn them away from a bad book.

But it makes me cringe because I can envision their faces. So, to strike that balance, I tend to utilize the "Helpful" feature on Amazon for bad reviews, rather than write my own. It's just a personal thing.

 

[novella]

I think this goes to the issue of 'reviewers' who are just outright nasty and insulting for sport. The internet is rife with flamebaiters who love to jab around until they upset someone. I don't think the reviewers on Amazon are particularly guilty of this, but discussion forums do see a lot of it.

I think responding to such 'opinions' just gives them credence. I could post loads of vitriol about that carpetbagger powerslut Hillary Clinton, but it would only be news if she responded.

 

[Shade]

My take on Anne Rice giving her email address was that she was desperate to get the criticism out of the public arena - so she was the only one who heard it. Still, I see she has a new book out in November called Christ the Lord. An autobiography, then?

Don't want to divert from the topic in hand, so ... as you were.

 

[sirmyk]

If I find a book to be "bad", I won't bother posting a negative review (Why waste the time?), but I will spread the word by other means.

...Anne Rice giving her email address...

This is a big deal for such a well-known author. I'm guessing it was a temporary address setup for negative conversation regarding her work.

 

[novella]

If I find a book to be "bad", I won't bother posting a negative review (Why waste the time?), but I will spread the word by other means.

I bother airing my views when they are in opposition to the major media reviews. Like Tom Wolfe's book A Man in Full sucked so totally, was so cliche-ridden and stuffed full of stereotypes that reading all the glowing reviews of it actually made me angry.

 

[sirmyk]

I bother airing my views when they are in opposition to the major media reviews. Like Tom Wolfe's book A Man in Full sucked so totally, was so cliche-ridden and stuffed full of stereotypes that reading all the glowing reviews of it actually made me angry.

I lied... I will put up a negative review if I found it dull, and mainstream found it orgasmic. But I try not to be harsh.

 

[namedujour]

If I find a book to be "bad", I won't bother posting a negative review (Why waste the time?), but I will spread the word by other means.


This is a big deal for such a well-known author. I'm guessing it was a temporary address setup for negative conversation regarding her work.

No, it was a real email address because I dropped her a note. She had calmed down by that time, and was really very charming and nice, and was philosophical about the whole thing. I suspect she was just frustrated and having a bad day when she posted it.

 

[lies]

No, it was a real email address because I dropped her a note. She had calmed down by that time, and was really very charming and nice, and was philosophical about the whole thing. I suspect she was just frustrated and having a bad day when she posted it.

She'd have to be pretty dumb to give out her "personal" e-mail address though.

 

[namedujour]

She'd have to be pretty dumb to give out her "personal" e-mail address though.

No. She was just knee-jerk angry. She answered my note right away, so she obviously checked her mail at that address at that time - and I wrote to her months later. If she'd gotten harrassed, though, it would have been a simple matter to get a new email. She was just putting up her dukes and saying, "Bring it on!" Whether she or Amazon yanked the posting, I don't know. But it wasn't up for long. She may have had second thoughts after she calmed down, then asked them to pull it herself.

I do impulsive things like that when I'm upset. Doesn't everyone?

 

[lies]

Obviously I'm not Anne Rice, but I should think a person in her position would have multiple e-mail addresses and I doubt she'd be giving the e-mail address she uses for friends and family, as she'd just be setting herself up for more criticism.

But that's not the point of this thread.

 

[namedujour]

Obviously I'm not Anne Rice, but I should think a person in her position would have multiple e-mail addresses and I doubt she'd be giving the e-mail address she uses for friends and family, as she'd just be setting herself up for more criticism.

But that's not the point of this thread.

Does it matter though? If you check your email at any address and reply, the address is "real".

And it kind of IS the point of this thread, which is related to reviews and reviewers. The side conversation is the fact that bad reviews strike home hard with the authors. Sometimes they react to the extent that they're willing to publish their personal information on the Internet.

 

[Shade]

The email address can be seen by anyone who googles for a phrase from her diatribe I posted earlier. On the face of it, I would have said it was her main personal email address: it had her name in it and it wasn't hotmail or yahoo or anything like that.

Of course, she may quite wisely have changed her email address since!