Recently I've been thinking a lot about book hype and the power of reviews. This came about for various reasons, mostly due to my experiences with some of the books I was reading. In today's post, I wanted to discuss both of these "issues" and assess if they are a good or bad thing. Just a little disclaimer before I get into this post- all opinions are entirely my own. You are entitled to yours just as I am entitled to mine. Let's be respectful of each others thoughts.
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| My beloved university shelves |
The reason I am writing about this is because of two books I have read recently, which are Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas. I actually have a full review of Where the Crawdads Sing, which you can read here. Both of these were books I picked up because at least one person I followed and trusted said they were good. I had read the summaries for both when I was purchasing and thought these sounded like books I would enjoy. Both, for various reasons, ended up being books I did not enjoy. I gave Where the Crawdads Sing 3/5 stars and I gave Catherine House 2/5 stars. So why did I pick them up in the first place?
The power of the review. This can be for books, films, tv shows, just about anything you can leave a review on. No matter what you are buying or where you are buying from, you read the reviews from other customers first. It gives an indication of if the product is good. When it comes to book reviews, I use Goodreads as a place to find informative and reliable reviews. I try to read a wide range of opinions and use the star indicator as a guide for what I think of a book. Where the Crawdads Sing has an average rating of 4.47 stars from over one million ratings. I had also seen good things from someones opinions I trusted. Catherine House has an average of 3.12 stars from over twelve thousand ratings, yet someone whose opinion I trusted had shared positive things about it, so I picked it up. Through these reviews and testimonials, I thought I had purchased two books I would really enjoy. I was wrong.
Reviews, on the whole, are a useful tool. It allows you to see what a wide range of people thought of something. That being said, they can also easily influence how you think of a book. If a book has a lot of positive reviews, you assume it must be a good book. The same with negative reviews. There have been times when after reading a book, I read some reviews of people who either loved or hated the book and find myself beginning to agree with them. I let myself be swayed by their opinions. Reviews hold so much power. One bad review isn't going to tank a book, but lots might. The same for positive might lead to a book being overhyped. It can be difficult to form your own opinion with so many out there. I am still going to do my research before buying a book, but I am going to try and read less opinions before and after so I can formulate my own opinions. When I was reading reviews of Where the Crawdads Sings and Catherine House after I had read them, I gravitated towards reading negative reviews. I wanted to know why these people hadn't liked them. I let it taint my own opinions, which was wrong of me.
This leads me to my next point- book hype. These days it feels very easy for books to become hype. There's a lot of discussion around whether certain books deserve the hype. I remember when I joined the book community in 2016, I went and bought a lot of the classic, hyped books. I read them over many years and ultimately found myself disappointed by these books. It could be I picked them up at the wrong time or that the hype was so big, that they just didn't deliver in the end. I have read some hyped books and enjoyed them. There can be some element of guilt if you don't enjoy a hyped book, you almost feel left out as everyone is raving about it and then there's you that didn't enjoy it. Obviously in the book community, we like to big up books we enjoy it. It helps the author and with reviews. Sometimes it can do more damage than good as it gets a reputation for being overhyped. Some books I've read that were very hyped and I didn't see the hype include Six of Crows, These Violent Delights and A Darker Shade of Magic. A hyped book I did like was Serpent&Dove.
A lot of this does come down to personal opinion. Sometimes a hyped or heavily talked about book isn't for you and that's fine. With the power of the review, it takes a lot of time and effort to develop your own opinion and criteria. I'm still getting there and I've been doing this for five years. Ultimately, there are pros and cons to both. I love writing and reading reviews, especially from a wide range of opinions. It just comes down to remembering your opinions are valid.
What are your thoughts on reviews and book hype? Do you think they are good or bad things?
Carenza :) x
