WTF Friday


This is something new we (myself along with Born to Read Books) are doing this year. It's where we ask...wtf about something that's bothering us. Fun right! So here is what I want to talk about today.

Reviews, and are they reading the same book as I did? 

Because I write a ton of reviews I don't often read any reviews beforehand. I don't want them to taint the way I feel about the book or I also don't want to sound like that review. So first I read the book and then write my review. Once that's done I hit Goodreads to check out what everyone else thought. 

So I had just read this one book and set up my review and then went to see what others thought. As I was reading reviews I came to one that talked about loving the first half of the book and couldn't read the second half because it became to dirty. The reviewer was very unhappy with how the author became dirty for dirty sake. 

Okay, so my first thought was that I either read the wrong book, it was an eARC so maybe that happened right cover, wrong pages inside, or that I was reading reviews for a different book. I checked my copy, nope it was good. Then I went back to the review and say that it was indeed for the book I read. She mentions the author in the review. 

So I had to think really hard when did these two main characters truly act dirty? The author doesn't really write explicit sexy so...I was at a loss. Then I remembered that one of the characters said the word fuck, once or twice in the story. Was that the dirty she was talking about? If so, why not say there is swearing in the story and I don't care for it. Why give it a slightly bad review for a word? The scary part is that she reviews for a site. So that means others listen to what she tells them about books. 

I know we usually follow bloggers who are likeminded with the books we love but still, I try to explain why something bothers me in a book and usually it's a lot more than one word. 

So, here's my question to you, do you read a review before you read a book? Do you trust the reviews you read or use them for the highlights?   





Comments

  1. I do read reviews before I read a book but it depends on the reviewer. There are some reviewers where we have very close tastes in books so I rely on their reviews.

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    Replies
    1. I get that. I try to stick with like minded reviewers too. But often add new ones for a different thought.

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