When the topic of negative reviews comes up I find myself defending the negative review. Unfortunately, the discussion always becomes muddied by the definition of what a negative review is.
Many people conflate bad reviews and negative reviews, but bad and negative are distinct qualities. One is an assessment of the review, while the other is an assessment of the book. You can have any combination of bad/good with positive/negative–a little like mixing genetic traits, but without the illicit stuff (book content notwithstanding).
A Punnett what?
A Punnett square, if you need an introduction, is a table used by geneticists to show the possible combination of traits where each trait can have two (or more) states. Think of a trait as something like ‘Hair colour’ and a state as ‘Blond’ or ‘Brunette’ or ‘Redhead’.
In this case, the Punnett square for the traits ‘Quality of Review’ and ‘Opinion of Book’ would look like this table:
I’m not claiming this is a particularly profound observation, just that it’s an easy way to make sure everyone is on the same page in a discussion of “bad” reviews. Of the four types of reviews, the only ones I find useful as a reader are the good positive review and the good negative review.
Good means that readers get information that tells them whether they are likely to enjoy the book. Even a negative review can do that by giving concrete reasons for the reviewers opinion and disclosing personal reading preferences that affect the reviewer’s views.
Bad reviews don’t give readers any information to make a decision with. Really bad reviews indulge in meanness like ad hominem attacks, sarcasm, and condescension—things that make only the reviewer look bad.
Bad positive reviews are the same as no review at all or worse. Some are so effusive but lacking in substance that they leave me thinking the reviewer is:
- A sock puppet
- A relative or friend of the author
- A person who didn’t really read the book, and/or
- On the take.
Whether any of those perceptions are accurate or not doesn’t matter—the seed of doubt is planted. If the author appears to encourage these sorts of reviews, it’s a black mark against both the book, author and reviewer.
Most of the bad reviews that I’ve seen are at online retailer sites like Amazon. Through selection bias, I don’t see many bad reviews on the book blogs I follow.
What makes a review good for you?
2 Comments
I love that you made a Punnett square to illustrate your point!
Word Lily´s last blog ..Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz
I don’t get to do them for any other reason nowadays–gotta make your fun where you find it.
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