150 Quotes About Reviews

The worst reviews, by my mind, are those from individuals who enjoy entertaining themselves by writing something bad about books they actually never read, which is as clear as day from what they’re saying. It’s even more puzzling for an author to check some of these “honest” reviewers’ pages and see that they created their profile with one goal in mind; to post you a bad review, as there’s nothing else they wanted to rate.

If a book isn’t at least somewhat polarizing, it didn’t say anything of value.[Blog entry - November 1, 2014]

I obsess over the possibility of bad reviews and brood over them when they come. But they don't get me down for long; I just kill a few children and old ladies, and then I'm right as a trivet again...

... the shelf life of my own opinion is somewhere between 3 seconds to 3 months, especially when it is about life and its meaning! :) ... But my recorded opinions definitely reflect my growing up for me, sometimes we do grow up in 3 seconds after we express something! :) ... yes we do!

You get a good review, and it’s like crack. You need another hit. And another. And another. I know authors are like Tinkerbell and generally need applause to survive, but it’s a slippery slope.

Books are important, and so serious intellectual attention to them is important. While promplty published scholarly articles are also important, the book format remains the only format that allows scholars, in every field and from every prespective, to take the time and space to develop an argument in depth. Books are at the heart of political science. Important books help to create new research agendas.

In the world where a million books are being published every year in the United States alone, every book reviewer is my hero! But even more important, every reviewer shapes the culture’s narrative. Reviewers get to decide what’s important. It’s not just the bad reviews — I hated those socks! — the good reviews have as much weight, if not more. Reviewers get to pick what’s the next IT thing! That’s power. …use it wisely…

Online review sites are the slushpiles of feedback.

The endorsements on books aren’t entirely impartial. Unbeknownst to the average reader, blurbs are more often than not from the writer’s best friends, colleagues or teachers, or from authors who share the same editor, publisher or agent. They represent a tangled mass of friendships, rivalries, favors traded and debts repaid, not always in good faith.