ROBUST discussion

A 'fluffy bunny story' with 'silly spells'. Well, I guess no one can say all my reviews were written by family any more.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3P8JYOT...

Ouch. I thought after that review the person would have given you a 1 star rating. He gave it 3, which once again totaly confuses me with the rating system. To me, 3 stars means it is a good read, holds your interest and is worth buying? Surely?

Then again, I imagine any book with spells and a boy in it will be forever compared to that powerhouse that is Harry Potter.

Most authors freak out if given anything lower than a 4, as if 5-stars are their right. A 2 star is grounds for suicide.

I rarely give out 5 stars. I think 3 and 4 stars should be enough.

So he's looking for dark sorcery and necrophilia...too bad. He'll have to boink zombies elsewhere. :-)

Or maybe he thinks someone should have been chowing down on toddlers for breakfast - all the best baddies do that, you know. Kiddie-O's and babies blood...yum.

It reads more like a one star review, I agree Claudine. But as my son pointed out, most of his/her reviews are negative, so I feel lucky I got the three stars instead. I've sold a couple of copies since it was posted, so it's not worrying me.

Well, this can be your official "credibility" review, I suppose.

It doesn't make any diffence.

I sometimes read the bad reviews to find out what the complaints are. Sometimes it sells me on the book.

K. A. wrote: "I sometimes read the bad reviews to find out what the complaints are. Sometimes it sells me on the book."

I only ever read the 1 and 2 star reviews. 3 stars means it's worth a buy in any event but the real meat is at the 1 and 2 star levels. There, you soon see the utter lack of knowledge that the reviewer has or you see that the author and the book lack everything. I don't ever read the 5 and 4 star reviews.

Wow, if I thought the Amazon version of the review was rude, take a look at the unabridged version -

http://brightdreamersbookreviews.blog...

When did books that clearly state that they're for 8-12 year olds become Young Adult?

Damn. Then my 11yo must be nearing male menopause by that definition. I assume that is the same reviewer who gave you the 3 star review?

Yes. Same one.

If you're worried about your 11-year-old, what about my poor 8-year-old? Hardly out of nappies and she's nearly off to university.

Okay - I have an observation.

One can use this review as a tool to improve, or one can just cringe. You don't strike me as a cringer. :-)

What he's looking for is more tension and conflict - internal and external.

I read "Writing the Breakout Novel" and tried some of the things in the workbook.

My favorites - "Name one thing your character would NEVER do."

"Now write a scene where your character does just that."

FWIW - see what you can learn from this. He went into detail and gave you a 3 - that's a lot of time to put into a review. I'm going to be optimistic and say everything else was top notch - there wasn't enough tension and conflict.

I don't necessarily know if I agree, K.A.

All this review indicates that there wasn't enough tension and conflict for that particular reviewer. One can always throw in more tension and conflict the question is whether it actually helps is more complicated.

Reviews are just like writing group critiques. They are someone's opinion, and one shouldn't dismiss them blindly, but nor should they be treated that they are inherently the absolute objective truth about the writing quality and used as basis to adjust things unless there's some actual trend.

I can find any book on Amazon that is either wildly commercially successful or critically successfully and find a pile of well-written and long negative reviews and, more importantly, a pile of well-written and long reviews that are three stars.

I'm sure in our writing groups we've also had people put a lot of time and energy into deconstructing a piece of writing in such a way that they didn't like it, but other people did. The person who doesn't like it is right for themselves not necessarily the author or other readers.

If an author starts taking every review into account they are going to end up with something that's going to end up bland and lifeless in my opinion, and probably not end up the book one actually wants to write.

This isn't to say that I think voice and personal style trumps everything as much as I think people need to accept we all make certain choices that will alienate some readers and pull some closer.

If Katie gets a number of reviews hitting on a similar theme that's different.

At the same time, though, all of this is why one shouldn't necessarily dwell on individual negative reviews (unless you are Andre taking pride in annoying Larsson fans or something).

This reader articulated well why he didn't like it, but just, "Different strokes for different folks" is a fine way to parse it, too.

Thanks, Jeremy. I'm glad you answered before I did. You said everything I wanted to say.

Kat, the reviewer read this book as YA. It isn't.

Okay. No problem.

Kat wrote: I rarely give out 5 stars. I think 3 and 4 stars should be enough.

Me too.

Which proves Jeremy's point, reviewing is all subjective. Some reviewers give 5 stars to pretty much every book they review. For them, they might consider if a book is not worth 5 stars, it is not worth reviewing. For me, anything under 3 and I don't bother. I suspect this reviewer would have felt the same even if he hadn't categorized it as YA.

Katie, I wish I had time to read DB. I know I am going to love it. But right now I am rather swamped...

If I were a review writer, I'd give five stars to any book that moved me to write a review. I wouldn't withhold stars thinking I'd mislead someone into thinking it was the second coming of To Kill a Mockingbird. For me, the stars would indicate the level of pleasure received from the read.

Ouch! Here's another one.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I'm glad some people like it!

Check out Jessica's reading matter. She's comparing you with CS Lewis and Kenneth Grahame, who come with a lot of baggage weighing on the high-side scales. I'd be flattered and write her a nice note saying so.

Perhaps the reviewer is just not imaginative...

I don't think she could like CS Lewis and Kenneth Grahame and not be imaginative, Sharon. I'd say she just didn't like my style. It's allowed. :D

I think she might be one of those 'cross-over' readers. Who look in the YA section for their own reading material.

A lot of the 'hot romance' is being labled YA for some reason that escapes me.