Reader's Advisory Week 5 prompt

Do you like to read book reviews? 

Angela’s Ashes was a very popular book and movie. I haven’t read the book nor seen the movie, so I wasn’t entirely sure what it was about. The reviews I read were helpful as a future librarian, and made me absolutely sure that Angela’s Ashes should be included in any public library collection. As a READER, however, I felt like the reviews almost said too much and ruined the book for me. I prefer super short reviews with as few details about the plot as possible. Although the writing and style of a book are perhaps the most important elements of a book for me, the plot drives the book, and if I feel like I already know too much about the plot I am much less likely to actually pick up the book.

Should reviews ever be “bad”? Well, that is a complicated question. In Reader’s Advisory we are trained to provide every reader with an enjoyable book according to their preferences, not ours as a librarian. Are there books that are objectively bad? I don’t know the answer to that. I quite enjoyed the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer even though many bibliophiles I know did not. Some readers find explicit language or descriptions unacceptable while others don’t mind that content at all. As a reader, a bad review or rating, such as I might find on GoodReads might save me from wasting time on a book I would hate. For example, one of my friends recently read The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum which is a book loosely based upon a horrifying real life crime, and includes graphic descriptions of torture to a child. I am glad I was able to read some reviews of that book before picking it up. One book I wish I had read reviews of before reading is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. I hated this book as much as I’ve ever hated a book, and I think some honest reviews might have steered me away from it, despite an intriguing premise. The paradox of “bad” reviews is that they can save someone a frustrating few hours that they can never get back, but they can also steer a reader away from something they might love or find enlightening. I don’t have a concrete answer to this question except that I think bad book reviews have their place. I think it’s appropriate to have some review sources, such as BookList, that don’t allow bad reviews, while also consulting sources such as Kirkus that have both good and bad reviews. 

The budget of a work will always determine its audience, similar to how the albums that are played on the radio are the ones most heavily promoted. I guess it’s not “fair” that some books don’t get as many reviews or publicity, but at the same time I have to shrug. i don’t know a solution to this other than librarians actively pursuing independent and lesser known works. E-book only books could be added to a collection when they are good read-alikes to popular authors. I do think there has got to be a certain standard of quality we achieve to meet in our collections, however. That boundary is always going to be nebulous and grey.