Reminds me of feeble Trumpster efforts to insult me. I have to respect a person fist to take their opinion to heart. Trumpster insults are like a back pat, because I know I must have gotten under their skin for them to bother.
Oh goodness, entertainment! I don't really understand people's want to review stuff they don't like. Naivety on my part but I always try to positive and when I really don't like something, accept it's probably an issue of taste and leave well alone. I'm trying to funnel my energy into the positive.
I usually find well-written negative reviews more useful than the positive reviews. For example: I don't like profanity. A bad review is likely to point out "an f-word on every page" whereas a positive review won't. Same with subject matter, tone, etc. Good reviews are all alike; bad reviews aren't
I will also bet that most of the reviews are by people who only know that they disagree with John Scalzi politics, and not actually anything he has ever written.
I rarely read reviews by anyone except professional critics now (sometimes, I'll read them by people who have had their identities verified). There are too many people who seem to be full-time trolls on publicly-accessible review sites now.
“I used a copy ‘Old Man’s War’ for toilet paper at my aunt’s house. She ran out on Thanksgiving. I didn’t get a chance to read it. It was not very absorbent and very scratchy.” -1 star
I’m the rare insurance customer that’s had an excellent experience with my carrier Travelers. But I don’t love it nearly as much as I loved your Travelers :)
It was fine while you stuck to the action. But then you had to go all "political" and "woke" and "REI" for some reason. Why oh why did artists have to start bringing their personal views into their art?
I believe it! It’s just that I’ve found plenty of bad takes on very good books - when I’m not the author, it’s eye-opening to see the range of tastes. But if I was the author, I couldn’t get it out of my head!
You say that, and you try to resist, but they call to you and so you read them, and you find a bad one, and that n makes you want to crawl under a rock, hide, and never write anything again until like a glimmer in the dark you read a good one about your book and remember why you write.
Um … I guess the good news is that lots of people have read your book?? Or are pretending to have done so. Half of them probably just have "un porc épic coincé entre les fesses” - my favorite French idiom. (A porcupine wedged between their ass cheeks). 😉
I don’t know why Goodreads is even a thing. I checked out my three latest books—each averaged around 4.9 over hundreds of Amazon reviews—and Goodreads had them all around 3.1. Who you gonna believe? I go with those who PAID for their copy.
The only less reputable site for reviews is Google Play.
Reading Goodreads reviews has helped me get a sense of the incredible breadth of taste in books. I’ve read scathing reviews of beautiful, brilliant books and fawning reviews of crap. There’s stuff that can be gleaned, but I mostly use Goodreads to keep my reading lists.
I rated all of your books "one star, not enough Godzillas" until recently.
(Joking, I think they're all 4 or 5 stars, despite the fact that many of them don't have enough Godzillas)
You really find out some things you thought were pretty good aren't as good as you thought, on the "enough Godzillas" metric. To Kill a Mockingbird? Almost no Godzillas! The Great Gatsby? Godzilla-less. Moby Dick? Arguably one Godzilla, but maybe a metaphor?
I'm not a fan of casual genocide as a plot device, as one of the one stars wasn't either. Marvel do it all the time, I wish they wouldn't. That said, I still enjoyed your books.
Whenever I leave a one-star review of a book, I start it off with "Full disclosure: the author of this book is my grandson, who never calls me, but that in no way contributed towards this negative feedback, it's just that he's as bad a writer as he is a grandson."
How did you feel as you were reading the reviews? Did any of them have valid issues and did the majority of these people read the book in its entirety? Did you respond to any of them?
Reviews mean shit its weather your writing stands the test of time Stephen King got rejections on his early writing now they are cult classics as are many other writers over the centurys who were less than successful in their own time.
I’d be grateful for one star reviews of my book. On Amazon, Goodreads or anywhere.
When I wrote it and had to self publish I had hoped to reach the pinnacle of writing achievements- having it placed on every banned books list in this country.
I don’t rate or review books anymore. It’s so subjective as to be useless—what does 5-star mean, truly? Like standing ovations in the theatre, has it been devalued? Or is it reserved for the things that blow my mind? If I don’t like a book, it just means it’s not for me. Don’t punish the writer!
A romance writer I know got a 1 star review because her reader thought her book was not spicy enough. She was apparently hoping for dirty, raunchy porn, and my friend was a total disappointment by writing clean romance. How dared she write decently?
What can possibly make a book horrible enough for someone to give it a one star review? Yes I’ve read many books in my lifetime however, they have never been so bad to the point where it is worthy of only a one star. 😂
Sometimes I do this for Michelin-starred restaurants.
"They didn't have Bud Light and wouldn't stop folding a weird cloth square on my seat every time I got up to go to the shitter. We missed our Marvel movie. What kind of dinner takes over an hour?!?!?!"
I got a one-star review on Goodreads and I asked the reviewer why. They said it was because I got the gender wrong in a French translation:
Une collaboratrice.
Fair play.👍
Wait, aren’t you like a famous writer or something. I’m too lazy to look or google.
I recognize the name tho, I think I’ve read some of your books. They’re really good!!!. You should dedicate a book to them the reply telling them their advice was noted for your next NY times best seller”.
1* shouldn't be allowed because most have no actual bearing on the book! Just grumpy mean people. And if typos and errors,are so bad notify the site so it can be taken down and edited then back on the site. It's what we did reviewing on our site. No 1* was allowed. It was given back for correcting.
Speaking as a former professional critic: the act of creating a work is different from the act of reading it (or listening to it, or watching, etc as the medium dictates). One does not need to be a creator to evaluate the work, and how effective it is doing what the creator set out for it to do.
Judging works of art is a tedious pursuit. Too much subjectivity is involved to make it a meaningful endeavor. Critics' "feelings" about works of art are not likely to find a significant audience. Translation: I hope the creative folks keep plugging away at their craft whether or not others dig it.
there has to be a middle ground where a negative review is valid criticism that stings a bit, but the one-🌟review section isn't gonna be where you find it, that's where you go to learn you can only ever please most of the people most of the time 😁
That people submit 1 Star reviews of your works is wild to me. I regularly reread Collapsing Empire because Empress Grayson II is probably one of the funniest characters I've ever read, and Old Man's War is just so good fromso many angles. Looking forward to new things!!!
I can imagine that kids forced to read it line by tedious line in school (instead of just reading and enjoying it by themselves) would loathe it. I hate To Kill A Mockingbird because of how we were made to read it, not because of the content.
no idea what you mean; but for clarity here I'm saying nazis would go on a book site, find the books about jews, and give them all 1 star reviews. bc they are nazis.
I am not an author, but I go straight to the one star reviews when trying to decide a new book to read. I tend to go for the ones with the worst reviews usually
A very good photographer on YouTube said he was told by wise old photographer early in his career that nobody better than you will give you free critiques. The free negative reviews are always from the envious.
I've actually learned a lot by reading the one-star reviews of authors very similar to me, who are targeting the same categories. It really points out what readers want and expect.
To be fair, 1 star is the only negative one you can leave.
1 star is "Did not like it"
2 "it was ok" (Which is still minimally positive in my book)
3 "Liked it"
4 "Really liked it"
5 "It was amazing"
I'm curious, though, did any of the reviews say anything like: "Author posts more words on social media in a month than either of his last two books contained in total"? lol
I don't think they actually read it. I had someone with serious issues try to tank the sales with bad reviews when it first came out. Amazon ended up deleting some of the bad reviews that were obviously coming from the same person coming after me. There were some really crazy ones.
Some people need a life 😉 I review too and yes, I let authors send me their books and I'll read them. For the love of books and stories. I'll never rate 1 star, that's insulting. If it's really that bad, I'll get back to the author and give a genuine feedback without posting it online...
I spent a few minutes this week trying to figure out why Old Man's War was sitting on the "new this week" shelf for the past month in Chapters (Canadian book chain)
Comments
I've given very few one star reviews and never for your books.
I feel guilty giving a bad review. Better I should just not finish a book if it is that bad.
I gotta admit, that was totally my doing.
*If he had actually read the book, he would have found out that the soccer games never actually happened, WHICH WAS ACTUALLY THE POINT, FOOL.
* Or are you saying I should read the book?**
** It doesn't have too many words, does it?
*snort*
https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Truce-Memory-First-World/dp/0813174023/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.G2e6lDI3GThw-pXj581_vzcYMrqfcJPL2d-mxruSHuTGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.au0Csr1v5WpQgrwfmle9E9GevW5fe5z5Y5lKju9151U&qid=1733969958&sr=8-1
The only less reputable site for reviews is Google Play.
There were 1200 other words.
I love that one.
(Joking, I think they're all 4 or 5 stars, despite the fact that many of them don't have enough Godzillas)
I have an online prenatal class that has been reviewed by hundreds of people. My average is 4.7/5
For some reason, I have a handful of 1 star and 2 stars. None of those reviewers wrote anything. I like to think that they're the competition...
Totally don't make more like that
That'd be so terrible
/J
I haven't gotten the chance to listen to much of your stuff but that book stuck with me in a great way
When I wrote it and had to self publish I had hoped to reach the pinnacle of writing achievements- having it placed on every banned books list in this country.
That too will never happen now.
https://youtu.be/qhYT4vE1gvM
Maybe you accidentally read reviews for Jon Scalzi, or John Scalzi or something?
"They didn't have Bud Light and wouldn't stop folding a weird cloth square on my seat every time I got up to go to the shitter. We missed our Marvel movie. What kind of dinner takes over an hour?!?!?!"
#6'Elon
Une collaboratrice.
Fair play.👍
The best & worst reviews right next to each other in the book:
“Wonderful! I can almost hear the music!!”
“The most pedestrian load of shite I’ve ever seen.”
Read.
Laugh.
As you were.
The highlighted really landed the meaning.
I recognize the name tho, I think I’ve read some of your books. They’re really good!!!. You should dedicate a book to them the reply telling them their advice was noted for your next NY times best seller”.
But I won't leave those reviews and lower the book's overall rating, which usually over 4. Especially true for less popular books.
I'm probably too picky to end up with a 1 or 2 book.
😄 Jk
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodreads
https://www.thecut.com/article/luigi-mangione-united-healthcare-goodreads-account.html
📌
Personally this book is in my all time top 20.
Can't pronounce last name.
"I don't like horror books." --1 star
1 star is "Did not like it"
2 "it was ok" (Which is still minimally positive in my book)
3 "Liked it"
4 "Really liked it"
5 "It was amazing"