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It appears to be Friday again.

(Note: none of these guinea pigs are my guinea pigs. I don’t have any guinea pigs. I just think memes about them are adorable.)

Today I thought it would be fun to talk about reviews. 

The rise of the Customer Review section on websites has really changed things, hasn’t it?

Show of hands, who’s old enough to have shopped before the internet existed? 

Me too.

Picking a book involved taking my babysitting money, getting my mom to drive me to the mall, then sitting on the floor in the Sci-fi/Fantasy aisle of Waldenbooks browsing through the new Dragonlance books or seeing if David Eddings had put out another volume in the Mallorean yet.

The guy who ran the checkout counter was a font of knowledge about fantasy books, but beyond his sage recommendations, I just bought books based on the author. Or, more often than I’d like to admit, the cover art. 

Fast forward to today, and in the comfort of my own home, wearing pajama pants, I can browse literally millions of books and read more reviews than I can handle about any book I choose. 

From that, it’s obvious that people like to leave reviews. 

 

My question is, how much stock do buyers put in reviews?

And I don’t really know the answer. I read reviews. -ish.

I often skim the negative ones and the titles of the positive ones.

 

 

WAIT.

I can’t talk about this without a little side trip.

Have you ever seen the reviews for this book?

This book, published  in 1993, has over 1400 reviews. It is, apparently, a serious book with actual advice for owners of small, private boats about avoiding the sort of dangerous situation (read: certain death) associated with any sort of entanglement with the huge ships on the water. I can see that being a problem for little boats.

But the reviews…

It makes me so incredibly happy to share a few of my favorites with you:

 


WHY NO KINDLE EDITION?????
Given that there is a huge ship bearing down on me RIGHT NOW I am extremely disappointed that I cannot get inst—
-Jim Henley, 1 star 

A Parent’s Review
As the father of two teenagers, I found this book invaluable. I’m sure other parents here can empathize when I say I shudder at the thought of the increasing presence of huge ships in the lives my children.
-Noel D. Hill, 5 stars

A Book of Hate Speech Posing as Advice.
As a huge ship myself, I’m hurt and offended that the author of this disreputable tract would suggest that I be avoided. Life is difficult enough as a huge ship in a world of sailboats, but now to be vilified like this is more than anyone should have to bear.
      -John Petty, 1 star 

Fight the real enemy
…NO SPOILERS here, but on closer examination, I can’t help but think this is simply another attempt of the Anti-Huge Ship movement to promote their extremist agenda…
-Citizen John, 1 star

Hee hee. You’re welcome.

 

 

Since we’ve been talking about the first book in my series lately, I thought I’d share with you my very favorite 1-star review for A Threat of Shadows, my epic fantasy novel:

 

Not a horror story…
Thought I was getting a horror story. This was way off – not my thing. Next.
-Lesli, 1 star

 

I’m sorry, Lesli. I hope you find something scary to read.

 

My question to you is: 

Do you read reviews for books? Do they influence whether or not you buy a particular title?