Ten outta Ten

The future is upon us. Or rather, it has been here for a rather long time and only recently are people jumping on the bandwagon. The voice of the singular man is slowly coming to be on par with the opinions of the great critics, in terms of swaying public opinion.

The only thing standing in their way, is making sure their review is worth reading.

What makes for a good review? I spent a little bit of time looking through and finding reviews that seemed to be well liked by fellow reviewers. They tended to have the following distinct aspects:

• The review included at least a small summary of the book, or at very least its major themes. In doing this, it treats the readers as if they had not read the book already. They avoid bringing up or revealing major plot turning points without fair warning. The review understands that those who are reading it have likely not read the book yet, and may use this review to ultimately make their choice.
• The review was edited for grammar, and presented professionally. The writing is solid and avoids unnecessary repetition. 
• The review is stated not as an opinion, but as an analysis of the book's merits. This means that they rarely use the terms "I liked" or "I disliked" but rather terms such as "Conrad demonstrates skill with..." The review seeks to be more than a simple opinion piece, but a brief analysis of the work itself and what it stands for. From there, conclusions are made as to whether or not the book is worth the time and effort needed to read it. 

With this in mind, I went to Goodreads and posted my own review. See it here.

I then went on to post a link to my review on my Facebook, which I won't be sharing for personal reasons. However, I will note that my review gathered a small amount of attention, mostly in the form of "likes." Most of my friends aren't particularly avid readers, and so I only got comments from two of my friends who are intense readers. They disagreed with some of my thoughts, but that doesn't particularly bother me. Everyone who reads the book will have a different stance by the time they get to the end. Getting their opinions about my review was valuable, however.

I found that people on Goodreads are a little more willing to talk to you than people on Amazon or Facebook. This is likely because the site is much more focused on books. Much like you would be more likely to get interaction about your movie review on Rotten Tomatoes than on Facebook. 

The internet is changing the way that reviews work. We have broader options to choose from than just the expert critics and those of our friends who have consumed the media in question. We can now read and enjoy the opinions of individuals around the world. We can make decisions about what we want to read based on reviews made by those who share a similar passion to us. The only caution to take into account, is that the most common reviews will come from those who have a strong opinion. Most of the readers will read the book and never bother to leave a review of it. This can cause things to skew either highly in favor of a book or highly out of its favor. I will admit that I review things very rarely, simply because I hardly ever feel strongly enough about a work to put in that much effort. By contrast, I tend to look at the reviews of a product before I purchase it. So perhaps I am hypocritical in this regard.