ROBUST discussion

Not sure if this is the right thread, but I just had something unprecedented, and gratifying, happen with a review copy that I gave away in a Goodreads giveaway.

Two days ago, one of the giveaway winners rated The Last Stratiote one star, no review. Obviously, that didn't make me happy.

Tonight when I logged in, I found that the reviewer had changed her rating to three stars and added this written review:

I obtained an advanced copy and immediately started reading it! As I got into it, it became instant that this was not going to be a book to my liking. It was confusing from the beginning and by the time I realized there were two stories being written I was at a point of stopping! I prefer a story line that you can follow and are not jumping around trying to remember who's character is who! This is not a book for the "faint of heart"... You will love/like it or not (hate is a harsh word). I was not a fan of this particular novel but would be willing to try and read others of hers in the future. I am giving it three stars to be fair that others prefer this type of writing. I will, possibly, return to it and finish it, but not at this time...

My best to her in future writings...

I appreciate her willingness to revise a rating based on the fact that, while the book isn't her cup of tea, others might find it a worthwhile read.

Has anyone else ever had this happen? I certainly haven't.

We all get some odd reviews from time to time.

I'd appreciate her honesty, too.

Middling three star ratings from "this isn't my sort of book but..." reviewers happen all the time and are infuriating, especially from people who asked for a copy: if it's not their kind of thing, why did they ask for it? It makes you wonder if you described the book correctly.

But yours is an odd sort of backhanded compliment.

Please note in so far as the 1-star/3-star thing goes on Goodreads, that sometimes reflects that a person is marking the book with one-star as just part of their general 'This is what I'm reading/considering/have and need to give a rating to,' not that they are actually rating it
truly as a reflection of quality.

Now, it's actually unnecessary given the way Goodreads is (you can just make something as in-progress without giving it a rating), yet I've seen many people who use it that way.

So the star change/lack of review may reflect that type of occurrence, rather than her truly hating it and changing her review later, though it could also be the latter given what the review states.

A lot of people just view GR as a way to catalog what they've read, and so they'll use the rating, note, and tag systems in ways that sometimes seem peculiar or particularly idiosyncratic if you're considering it more a general 'review site' sense, even when they are reading review for general consumption.

As for the general concept, one of my earliest reviews was a 2-star where basically the person said they hated everything about the book, but that the writing was 'actually good though', and they could see how someone else might like it. So, fair enough, I suppose.

LeAnn,

It happened to me as a reviewer. I read two books from different authors one after another, and gave the first one 3 stars because I thought this person can write way better content (and in my opinion, he had taken the easy way out by choosing a commercial genre, predictable saleable plot, deux ex machina tricks etc.) I simply wanted to challenge him to write books that match his talent (and said so).

Then I read book two and I thought, gosh. This is bad. So I upgraded the first one to a four so I could sleep well at night.

This story says that, as readers, we are very subjective and influenced by anything, from mood to the desire to help a colleague via constructive criticism, to (perhaps, and half-joking, the amount of garlic we ate last evening.)

Also, people start posting reviews on goodreads where a 1 star means, simply, "I did not like the book."

Not "this book is poor quality etc" - just, simply, "I, person x, did not like this book." For what is worth, my opinion is that we, as authors, should not sweat stuff like this out. It's one person's opinion, and we have to respect it.

You all make some good points. As a former technical writer, I'm not at all surprised that Goodreads is used in a variety of ways, not all of which may have been intended by its designers. However, I hadn't figured out yet that some people mark books as 1 star because they intend to read them and don't realize that there is a "to-read" shelf. I'm sure I'm not the only author who did't realize this. In fact, just the other day a big-name romance author posted a puzzled question on her Facebook feed wondering why someone would rate her WIP with a 1 star. She'd also found that this GR member had marked over 8,000 titles with a single star. I don't know how Goodreads could design the user interface better to avoid this situation.

Andre, the book's description ends with this paragraph:

Complex, gritty, and brutally human, The Last Stratiote alternates between dramatic action and a challenging, richly symbolic exploration of life, religion, and philosophy. It is a story informed by the intrinsic motives underlying our desire for love, lust, revenge, healing, and redemption.

I can't say with certainty that this would tell the would-be reader that The Last Stratiote is more than a typical genre read, but, again, my experience writing instructional materials and designing documents (my graduate program was part of the movement a few decades ago to write consumer credit card contracts and government forms in plain English) has led me to believe that there will always be some readers who don't, well, read.

Gabriela, your point about how readers will respond to any given book based on mood, personal experience, current events -- any number of changeable and subjective items not under our control as authors -- is well taken. Even if some part of me wishes everyone would like my books, I hope I'm too pragmatic to be bothered (much) that not everyone does.

But as for the rating system on Goodreads: it is strictly for whether a reader likes a book. I find it too simplistic because there are very good books that I don't actually like or enjoy. I tend to rate them highly nevertheless, partly because I understand and respect good writing on its merits. I've tended to rate books that I liked for their storytelling a little less high, but I also try to keep in mind what kind of books they are. That is, if I read a thriller that I thought was clever and complicated, I'd rate it high with the unwritten caveat that it was being rated against other thrillers, not the Pulitzer-winning novel that I've also read.

It seems to me that Goodreads could use a multi-star system. That's what a movie review site I use for investigating movies for my kids does. The site doesn't rate on story or movie-making quality; rather, it tries to give parents a bit more information about the contents so that they can decide if its appropriate for their children without previewing the movie.