Sep 282011
Each week Katrina @ Callapidder Days will be posting a question to go along with our FIR challenge.
How much do book reviews influence your decision to acquire and/or read a book?
This question required a bit of pondering for me. I breeze through reviews like you can’t imagine. Every morning in my Google Reader are at least 500 items that are either memes, reviews, news articles, or tech reports so, I do not R-E-A-D every line of each one. Actually, unless a cover or title catches my eye I don’t read reviews. What I read are the teasers.
No matter how much I think I may like a book based on the plot – it’s really the writing that always gets to me. If I don’t enjoy the author’s style I can’t read the book – and I am NOT reading something that isn’t fun.
I also, enjoy reading bad reviews. I’ve found many great books by reading things that others thought were bad… like The Goddess Test which I read because of a bad review.
So, essentially, when I read a teaser I like I look for reviews on the book and if I like the reviews I’ll grab the book. In essence, yes, the reviews help tremendously but not in a traditional sense.
What about you?
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A single book review won't make or break a book for me, but if I was on the fence about a book and I read a bunch of "meh" reviews, I'd most likely hold off. If I read a bunch of "stellar" reviews for that book, I'd most likely jump in and go get it and read it.
Every once in a while a really spectacular review will make me put a book on my list. Usually it is because the review has revealed a character trait or plot point that really appeals to me.
Great question!