Thursday, January 24, 2013

Haters gonna hate


Many of my author friends have a love-hate relationship with Amazon reviews. They lap up the four and five star grades, make peace with three stars, cringe at two, and absolutely flip out with a lowly single star. And when Nik and I publish our books (fingers crossed while tapping wood, tossing chicken bones, and praying fervently), I know I’ll be exactly the same. If I can even bear to look.

But have you noticed that a huge majority of the books on Amazon (or packages of aluminum foil or hair removal creams…) include at least a small handful of haters? Some of the dings I agree with, for example, in the case of a very poor translation or a grossly inaccurate product description. And some are obviously errors: “best book ever written”…one star. And then there are what look a whole lot like sour grapes, as well as reviewers just trying to garner a laugh: 
The King James Bible:  “I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35.2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him, or should I ask the police to do it?”
But having read through hundreds of reviews, it’s clear that the price we pay for free speech and a (mostly) open internet, is that not everyone is going to like everything, and they’re not afraid to say it via a completely anonymous commenting system. 

For fun then, I bring you snippets of Amazon one-star reviews for a handful of literary classics (click on the book name to see the reviews):

  • David Copperfield (Charles Dickens):  “…if you have several hours to spend on the pursuit of being so bored you want to contemplate suicide, I would highly recommend this book.”
  • Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson): “Not very interesting. It was confusing with sailor slang words and British spelling. I would not recommend this book to people who like action."
  • Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky): “I felt like my crime was buying the book and my punishment was reading it…the characters constantly reminded me of the "two wild and crazy guys" from Saturday Night Live.”
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll): “The only redeeming factor about this endless acid trip is putting the literal meaning behind the phrases that have inexplicably wormed their ways into the English language, such as Cheshire grin or "down the rabbit hole." I had to read it to keep up with my son's middle school class assignments, and it leaves me wondering why schools would assign books that can turn the kid off to reading altogether.”
  • Little Women (Louisa May Alcott): “Each [girl] initially aspires to do something great with her talent, but these dreams are summarily squashed. By the end of the book, and with the admonition that "talent isn't genius", Alcott has impressed upon her audience that such dreams are almost always fanciful. The lesson seems to be: harbor such dreams at a young age if you must - - but in the end, you'll be much happier if you get married, have kids, live puritanically, and take care of your husband."
  • The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett ):  “Take a bratty girl, have her meet up with her obnoxious, long-lost, sickly cousin and throw in an intolerably polite green thumb, write them in a story about a garden that the Hunchback of Notre Dame locked away because it reminded him of his deceased wife, and write in the most annoying, condescending style imaginable.”
And one of my favorite reads EVER:
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams): "Reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is like sleeping with the town slut... everyone tells you she is good, so you give her a try. Afterward, you kick yourself for being so gullible to believe it.”

8 comments:

  1. It is the same when you have a blog - sometimes you get the trolls who make anonymous comments and are really nasty because they figure no one will know. To your point, I've heard from other authors about the pros/cons of Amazon. It's bad if you get someone who is trashing your book under different names just to bring down your average rating. That's really a shame. - Bicultural Mama (your tribesmate)

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    1. The anonymity of the internet has definitely empowered the trolls! Amazon could easily prohibit the trolling you mention (single person using different names) simply by tracking IPs and limiting the reviews per item to one. They certainly do it for shopping when quantities are limited - when Lego Minecraft came back in stock last month it was strictly one per customer. Same with the Wii in past years and other hot items. No reason they couldn't do a similar restriction with product reviews.

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  2. I've always felt a nasty review tells you more about the reviewer than it does about the book.

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    1. Agreed! I don't love every book I write & I've torn one or two apart on the blog, but I try to back up my opinions with evidence from the book. Sometimes it does get away from me though. I could probably do a better job writing more balanced reviews - highlight the high points as well as the low points. Thanks for giving me something to think about!

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  3. Loved this post. Trip Advisor reviews are my favourite, especially the really picky ones. One of my favourite ever 1 star reviews on Amazon was for The Beatles' 'Rubber Soul', one of my favourite albums ever. The reason for the 1 star? The reviewer didn't like the cardboard CD case as it wouldn't fit into their CD rack at home properly! Sod the music, that doesn't matter anymore, it's all about the bloody CD case!

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    1. TripAdvisor reviews are hilarious! Not just the one-stars (" saw a crumb on the carpet in the hallway outside of our door....one star"), but also some of the fake five-star ones, the ones that read like copy from an advert. Nik can usually spot those in seconds.

      Too funny about the Beatles album - I always wonder with reviews like that, are they serious? Is there really a person out there that will trash a work of art because it didn't fit in there home? "Would've loved the Mona Lisa over my fireplace had the colors blended better with my shag carpeting...one-star."

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  4. LMAO... those one-star reviews you cited really put things into perspective for me. Esp. the one about the Hitchhiker's Guide!!! Still cracking up over that one!!! :)

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    1. When our books are published (well, written first, then edited, then published), I'm keep this post handy to re-read daily, so when I ultimately receive my first bad review I don't crumble into a blubbering blob of despair. The internet is a strange and scary place, and it's brought out a meanness in some people that I don't think they'd have the courage to show with their real faces.

      Not all my reviews have been good, but I'd like to think that if I were standing face-to-face with the author, I'd say exactly the same thing as I wrote in the review.

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