Monday, January 17, 2011

Can I smack some people on Goodreads ... please?

I got on Goodreads yesterday to find that I had another starred review. I'll be honest, my stomach takes a few dips and dives every time that number goes up. I know that I'm not supposed to let that "affect" me, but hey, writers are human too!

And so, it was disappointing to find that this person had only given Asteria two stars. To date, we have no "bad" written reviews, and very few low starred reviews, but on the rare occasions that it happens, I go and look at when they started the book, when they finished the book, what other books they did/did not like. This one took the cake, though.

In two days, this person reviewed over 1,100 books. Very few fours were given, same with the threes, and the majority of reviews seemed to be one and two stars. I started looking at the books that were around mine, and found that I'm actually in pretty good company. Here are just a few of my fellow one and two-starred books:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tuesdays with Morrie
Oliver Twist
Beautiful Creatures
Anything Nora Roberts
Most Janet Evanovich
Crescendo
Dark Divine
The Glass Menagerie
Treasure Island
Speak
Where the Red Fern Grows
Eat, Pray, Love
Fallen
Forgive My Fins
Lost Saints
Torment
Crescendo
His review average is a 2.24, and out of his 1120 ratings a whopping 53% received a 1 or 2 star review, 32% received 3stars, 3% received 4, and, wait for it .... the only two books that received 5 stars were, yep, you guessed it, written by him. He not only starred his own books, but gave himself a rave review. What a swell guy.

Now I've run across a few of these (one of the one-star reviews we've gotten, the girl's average was a 1.47 ... I figure that if I didn't like reading that much, I'd have tossed my books out long ago), and honestly, I try not to let it bother me, but for some reason this guy really jerks my chain. He rated a Dr. Seuss book as a 2-star, for Pete's sake. As my grandmother would say, them's fightin' words!

Personally, I think this person is trying to seem legit by having a mass amount of reviews. I doubt he's read any of the books he's reviewed (not counting his own, of course), but give me a break!

I'm not naive enough to believe that everyone is going to like Asteria, but I at least want them to read the thing before they throw down a review! Really, is that too much to ask?

6 comments:

  1. I too agree with you!! There are people out there that honestly have nothing better to do the falsely review books. I'm currently read a book that I think is awesome and there are people star rating the book 1 to 2 stars but yet they don't explain the reasoning behind their rating. For an author who knows how much work goes behind writing a book and to go off and rate some hits 2 stars is just ridiculous!!!
    I also want to say thank you for doing a blog post on this!!

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  2. That is so stupid of that person!!!

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  3. Hmmm...glad you were able to put 2 and 2 together and get 4 on this one. Who does that guy think he's fooling, anyway? I mean, I might go a rate some of the books I've read in the past, but 1100? Just to make myself "look good?" All he did was make himself look really bad. Really.

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  4. Truly, authors shouldn't be able to rate their own books on Goodreads. That's just silly.

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  5. I know, right? I understand rating your book. I mean, in order to put your book on your shelf you either don't rate it at all, or you have to give it something. Either way looks bad, but to actually write a review about how much you love your own book is just ridiculous!

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