To Post Negative Reviews or Not, That Is The Question.

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with posting negative reviews of books that you've read to your blog, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, or any other medium where you have posting rights to upload your reviews.

I think that negative reviews are just as important as positive glowing reviews, in the fact that they're a well informed honest opinion about the book you've read. Tact is just saying what's not true, pretty much. So, I'd much rather write an honest review stating whether or not I liked the book and list whatever reasons I found the book less than enjoyable and be able to post it in any medium that I'm being allowed to post my reviews.

To be honest, I get leary when it comes to reading nothing but glowing positive reviews of book after book after book. It just doesn't seem honest to me, if I'm looking through reviews on a site featuring various reviews, another book blog that I've surfed across, or anywhere else for that matter, and all I'm seeing is positive three stars and higher ratings for all of the books that have reviews listed for them on there. It makes me wonder a.) who's writing these reviews, b.) if the person writing these reviews is afraid to actually say what they really think about the book for whatever reason or fear they may have, c.) if the person writing the review just doesn't understand the concept of constructive criticism or voicing an opinion in general, d.) or if the the author (logged in either anonymously or posing as someone else) is behind all of those glowing positive raving reviews that are being written, and many other things that come to mind.

The whole thing just seems a bit fishy to me. Holy macrale, yes, it reeks.

This is part of the reason that I've hesitated for as long as I have in reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Not because I don't think they're good books, but because I feel as if they've been hyped up so much by everyone else that I'm just not so sure that I'm going to have the same opinion of them or reaction to them that other's have experienced. So, I'd much rather see a vast array of reviews varying in their ratings to help me sort of determine whether or not I want to read them or any other book for that matter.

My point is, when I rate a book anything lower than three stars, I'm not doing it to be mean spirited. I'm actually giving an honest review and chances are there were a few things gone wrong with the book such as plot, pacing, continuity, ect. that I've found to be a little hard to overlook and have factored into my giving it two stars instead of three and above. Yes, I'm willing to accept that there are some people out there who probably are being mean spirited when they give reviews for books with two stars, but that doesn't mean that just because the few did it that everyone else is going to either.

I personally believe that negative reviews are just as important as positive radiant reviews are, in some instances. Now, I say this, in the hopes that they have been written politely and with the proper constructive criticism setting and not just for the sole purpose of blasting the author and/or the book itself, which is something that I do not support. So, by all means, if you don't like a book you should feel free to write whatever type of review you're going to write and rate it however you would like it to be rated (whether it's four stars or two) and you should be able to post it wherever you have the access or medium to post it within reasonable guidelines set-up for said medium.

And that's my think-y thought for today.