Saturday Discussions (8): Do you write negative reviews?

Before I ever started my blog, I knew that I wanted to be honest on here. I set out to review movies and books with honesty and to turn a sharp critical eye to the things that I love. That also means finding a fair amount of things that I don't love in the process. See, the wonderful and sometimes terrible thing about writing is that it's purely subjective. For a million people that like something, there are going to be at least a few who don't.

But the question was, do I state this here on my blog for EVERYONE to read?

The only answer I could come up with was an honest one and that is absolutely. 

I never want a friend to hate something and tell me they liked it just to be nice. So why would I do the same thing to my followers? Because that's what we all are, right? We're friends who have a common passion. So I feel I owe it to you all to tell you if I'm not crazy about something.

The problem with negative reviews?

They can really hurt the author and other people who might be wild about these books. The internet makes everything that much smaller. My opinion can be read by so many people. Which is why I try to analysis why I don't like something and EMPHASIZE that it could sincerely just be my tastes. I'm never going to say that the "characters sucked" because it's rude, unprofessional, and as a writer, I know it's also hurtful. I might say something like "While Amber was funny, it was hard for me to have pity for her because she was selfish. Her selfishness caused me not to connect with her and thus it was hard for me to truly care what happened to her". That is telling you why I disliked something without being rude.

I think that the problem with negative reviews is when people don't handle them professionally. Nothing bothers me more than people ranting about how this novel was crap and the writer was terrible for having written it and that anyone who likes it must be stupid. Yeah, that is SO not the way to write a negative review.

I feel like negative reviews can be useful and need to be out there but there is a major difference between doing it to be helpful and doing it to be hurtful.

My last thing is that I've read a lot of posts where people say that most bloggers won't write negative reviews on ARCs they receive. Is this true? Maybe. Is this true for me? No, not at all. I'm never going to lie to you. I give five bunnies only if something blows my mind. I only give 1 bunny if I can't finish or barely finish it. I can understand why people would feel bad about giving a newly released book a bad review that the publisher let them have early but that's part of the risk they take. It has no factor in my enjoyment of a novel.

So as a final thought, I'd like to explain my rating system:

5 bunnies- This is reserved for mind-blowingly good books only. Things that will change the way you look at reading. Things that keep me up at night.

4 bunnies- I loved this book a lot. I read it fast and furiously but I can think of a few things that would have bettered my enjoyment.

3 bunnies- This is my most common rating. It for books that were fun reads but did have some flaws. Generally they are gambles. You might love it or you might not.

2 bunnies- Though I finished the book, there were loads of flaws and you should read at your own risk. I either had a serious problem with the writing, the plot or the characters (most of the time, all three).

1 bunny- I just couldn't finish it or it was a struggle to get through. Plenty of problems.

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Next week's question: Do you judge a book by it's cover?