It's time for Making Up For Monday!
This week's question: How do you feel about giving negative reviews?
I don't know about anyone else, but I hate giving bad reviews. No matter how you dice it, someone worked very hard on the book you are reading. They spent hours, days, months, and sometimes years working on that. They poured their heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears into it. As a writer, I find that my writing is incredibly personal and part of me. If someone were to write negatively about it, it would be hard not to take it personal. This is perhaps the number one reason I have never attempted to publish anything. I can not handle rejection.
But as a reviewer, it is necessary to be honest with all my reviews. So, as a result, there are more than a few books that get negative reviews. But to counter my guilt, I have started adding a recommendation at the bottom of each review. Just because I didn't like the book, doesn't mean someone else won't enjoy it. Each person has their own personal taste and lives. Sometimes books that no one else seem to like, speak to me because they relate to my life and how I feel at that time. Others I don't understand at all, but others who have had similar experiences as the characters totally love it.
What about you? Do you ever feel a, little bad giving a bad review?
If I don't like a book, I will give it a negative review. I focus on explaining why I didn't like it; I won't just say it sucks. The worst is when it's an author you love... But I try to not be cruel to the writer or insulting to those who liked it. My blog readers get my honest review, though.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more Page! I definitely try to explaining why I didn't like a book, rather than, well, this sucked!
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