Read & Review: Week 5 Prompt Response

I looked at two reviews of the eBook The Billionare's First Christmas by Holly Rayner.  The first is a review by a customer on Amazon.com.  This reviewer gives a very basic plot summary and the customer's personal feelings about the book.  Her review is based solely on how the book made her personally feel.  The end of the review is a rambling bit about a potential sequel, which has nothing to do with the merits of the book being reviewed.  The other review is from a blog, and it is even less helpful.  The reviewer gives really generic descriptions of the book ("I like the atmosphere of the whole thing"), and I can't really follow what she is trying to say.  She doesn't explain much about what she liked or disliked--in fact, she contradicts her feelings about the book several times.  (First it's "too Christmassy" and then the Christmassy aspect is "just the right choice" for holiday reading.  The book is described as "warm and cozy," yet the reviewer finds the plot to be "odd.")  This second review doesn't tell me much about this book at all.

I don't find either of these reviews for The Billionaire's Fist Christmas to be whatsoever reliable.  Neither one is grammatically sound, so I can't really take them seriously.  Also, neither gives enough pros or cons for someone to make a truly informed decision about reading the book.  This book is not even Romantic Suspense.  Books in the Romantic Suspense genre are defined as "[blending] Romance and Suspense so completely that it is only possible to consider them as their own genre" (Saricks, 2009, p. 35).  From what these reviews say, there's not a single element of Suspense in this book.  "Beautiful, clean" and "warm and cozy" aren't terms used to describe the Suspense genre, and you certainly wouldn't use them to describe Romantic Suspense.  Saricks (2009) even says that "a sense of uneasiness prevails even in quieter moments and affects the tone" of Romantic Suspense novels (p. 37).  If the only reviews that exist for this book are like these two (incomplete, inaccurate, subjective), then I probably wouldn't get this book for my library.

I also looked at some reviews for Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.  These reviews are professional and complete, giving short plot summaries, objective thoughts about the book's content, and a little of the reviewer's personal feelings.  They make me think that I should definitely add this book to my library's collection.  The reviewers use such strong adjectives to describe the book: powerful, exquisitely written, extraordinary, almost impossible to put down, astonishing, vivid, wonderfully readable.  It seems like a no-brainer to include this book in any library's collection.  It's popular for a reason, and all kinds of people would love it, according to the reviews.

It's not fair that Angela's Ashes has several useful reviews, but that The Billionaire's First Christmas gets very little attention.  If libraries are looking to reviews to develop collections (and they are), then they will probably skip over the vast array of obscure or little-known, yet brilliant, books that are out there.  Just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's the best--libraries could miss out on books that their particular patrons would love, just because reviewers don't seem to care enough about those books to give them a serious look.  Just as I find it inappropriate for little-known books to get less attention than popular ones, I also find it inappropriate for review sources to never print negative reviews.  Not every book is fantastic.  Sometimes the writing is bad, or the plot goes nowhere, or the length is prohibitive to enjoying the story.  There's nothing wrong with pointing out negative elements of a book, especially if a reviewer feels that other readers will dislike those elements as well.

In fact, I actually like to see a discussion of the bad parts of a book when I'm looking at reviews for personal reading.  I rarely read a book without looking at reviews first, and the main source I use is Goodreads.  Many of its users are well-read and give fair critiques of books.  If they don't give a fair review, then they at least explain in detail why they didn't like a book, rather than just telling readers that the book was terrible.  I am often skeptical about reading popular books, so I want honest reviews of them--seeing what other readers hated about a book helps me to determine whether those elements are dealbreakers for me, too.  I used to pick books to read based on whether or not I liked the cover...this usually worked in my favor, but sometimes books with compelling cover art would be real duds.  I got into the habit of reading reviews before going book shopping so that I could avoid wasting my time starting books I'd hate halfway through.  I think that everybody should use reviews for personal reading, even if you just read one short one.  I've found that the blurbs on book jackets can be very deceptive, so reviews are much more useful in helping you to decide whether or not to read something.  Goodreads and Kirkus Reviews are two of my favorites because, in general, they offer sufficient plot summaries without ruining any surprises (Goodreads reviews often have "spoiler alerts" so you don't read spoilers if you don't want to), and they include a bit of the reviewer's personal take on the book.  I especially like Goodreads because you get an abundance of mixed reviews, explaining various parts of a book that was loved or despised, and I feel that this is the most helpful for me to be able to really decide if a book is for me.


Reference
Saricks, J. (2009). Romantic suspense In The readers' advisory guide to genre fiction, second edition (pp. 35-49). Chicago: American Library Association.