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So much of the time if I go to yelp or amazon, I will see things (businesses or books) given good reviews. But they are not good. It has become today almost rude to criticize even if the service / book is subpar. I can't understand that. To get a bad review you really have to be almost negligent.
I find this in my life too. Everyone just wants to pretend that everything is great. But if you speak up and say, um, no it isn't, somehow you are a jerk.
I feel like this kind of attitude is going to destroy us as a society. It is like it pushes standards down.
I think your general negativity tone is coloring your view of reviews. Authors often time generate a number of fans that no matter what they put out as long as it contains those core characters those core readers are going to love it. No matter how bad it is. I’ve seen that myself.
An author that I thought wrote an amazing first book, wrote an OK second book. Reviews were stellar. I switched to the library, and each book got progressively worse, and the reviews were stellar. By book 8 or nine, at this point I was hate reading, the author LITERALLY copy and pasted long passages from other books. My first “clip” book! I went back to the library, took copies of her books off the shelves, sat at a table and found the passages.
That’s when I wrote a somewhat negative Amazon review, but other people started to agree with me about it. And the hard core fans didn’t agree with me, and once again reviews were stellar for the clip book. The reason I didn’t give it a one star review, is it was competently written for what it was, and it was an enjoyable read, but I certainly wouldn’t want it on my bookshelves.
So much of the time if I go to yelp or amazon, I will see things (businesses or books) given good reviews. But they are not good. It has become today almost rude to criticize even if the service / book is subpar. I can't understand that. To get a bad review you really have to be almost negligent.
I find this in my life too. Everyone just wants to pretend that everything is great. But if you speak up and say, um, no it isn't, somehow you are a jerk.
I feel like this kind of attitude is going to destroy us as a society. It is like it pushes standards down.
I will speak for books (knowledge/advice) and other goods, as well:
Brand evangelism and marketing, combined with inflated reviews (and inflated currency, and inflated grades, and inflated titles...) are ruining any reliable indicators a shopper can use to identify whether they will truly enjoy or get use out of a product. This inevitably will result in more waste (and wasted time and money) return shipping items which ultimately are a poor fit. Did they think that tactics used to squeeze out a few more sales wouldn't backfire once the customer got their hands on it? Would the mindset still be there in which they saw that it was good enough to buy? NO! An impulse is fleeting, thus the feel-good vibe, was, too. The buyer will now objectively review the item for what it really is, once in-hand. These sales and marketing directors must be incentivized on gross sales, with no dings for a high return rate.
Speaking more to your point on books, yes, there's too much validation-seeking, and too much obligatory back-patting crowding out any (god forbid) dissenting opinions. We are riding some wave of YES and any NO gets sunk to the bottom and silenced until it's no longer relevant in the discussion. We thought a two-party system was bad, this is even worse. It's a one-sided vacuum in which even the unconvinced nod their heads in agreement as not to drag out the horn-tooting any longer. Suffering through...
I will speak for books (knowledge/advice) and other goods, as well:
Brand evangelism and marketing, combined with inflated reviews (and inflated currency, and inflated grades, and inflated titles...) are ruining any reliable indicators a shopper can use to identify whether they will truly enjoy or get use out of a product. This inevitably will result in more waste (and wasted time and money) return shipping items which ultimately are a poor fit. Did they think that tactics used to squeeze out a few more sales wouldn't backfire once the customer got their hands on it? Would the mindset still be there in which they saw that it was good enough to buy? NO! An impulse is fleeting, thus the feel-good vibe, was, too. The buyer will now objectively review the item for what it really is, once in-hand. These sales and marketing directors must be incentivized on gross sales, with no dings for a high return rate.
Speaking more to your point on books, yes, there's too much validation-seeking, and too much obligatory back-patting crowding out any (god forbid) dissenting opinions. We are riding some wave of YES and any NO gets sunk to the bottom and silenced until it's no longer relevant in the discussion. We thought a two-party system was bad, this is even worse. It's a one-sided vacuum in which even the unconvinced nod their heads in agreement as not to drag out the horn-tooting any longer. Suffering through...
Not to mention, how many books out there are being written by long dead authors? They sell because the name sells. You’d pick up a V. C. Andrews book, but if somebody wrote that book who didn’t use that name as the pen name or ghost authored , you’d leave it on the shelf. Robert Parker is also been dead for 10 years and he still puts out books.
And then you have the authors who are not dead and putting out a bunch of books yearly because they’re all written by somebody else who at least gets half credit. James Patterson does that, Clive Cussler does that, I think he’s still alive.
And then you have the “authors“ from television shows. Jessica Fletcher writes books, Richard Castle writes books.
It’s all a money-making thing.
__________________ Solly says — Be nice!
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Solly says — Be nice!
, you’d leave it on the shelf. Robert Parker is also been dead for 10 years and he still puts out books.
