# “ This book was horribly written, repetitive, and just plain boring. ”



## Vincent (Jun 25, 2012)

*1,770 reviewers* made similar statements about a certain current Kindle best-seller. Out of 7327 reviews, 2252 are ONE star...

...as well as 3153 five stars reviews.

Obviously the reading world is schizophrenic...


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Almost any best seller will have a range of reviews from one star to five stars, including Shakespeare. No book is for everyone. I found _The DaVinci Code_ ordinary and was surprised at the status it achieved.

Betsy


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## Vincent (Jun 25, 2012)

Yes Betsy, agreed. The interesting thing is that most best-sellers have an "L" shaped review curve, that is, most reviews are 4 or 5 stars. The current Kindle best-seller has a "U" shaped curve... with a large quantity of 1 star reviews. This is not normal from what I've seen. 

Just observing, that's all.

Cheers!


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## Beth Dolgner (Nov 11, 2011)

The fact that you can't say which book got those reviews actually makes these threads more fun: I like coming up with books that seem to fit the bill.


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## jwest (Nov 14, 2011)

Definitely one of those hate it or love it books.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Green-eyed jealousy. Most of the one-star reviews were probably left by people who've written technically-perfect novels which have failed to find an audience.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Simon Haynes said:


> Green-eyed jealousy. Most of the one-star reviews were probably left by people who've written technically-perfect novels which have failed to find an audience.


Or maybe they were written by readers who expect something more. . . .and who also, incidentally, find it distasteful when authors assume negative reviews are only left by other jealous authors. Readers who find authors distasteful. . . .for whatever reason. . . .don't read their books.

Obviously I have no idea what book this is -- and, no, it is NOT appropriate for it to be posted here -- but if it was one I was considering, I can make my own judgements about the relative value of the reviews, positive or negative.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Simon Haynes said:


> Green-eyed jealousy. Most of the one-star reviews were probably left by people who've written technically-perfect novels which have failed to find an audience.




I'm sure that explains the one-star reviews Shakespeare has received on Amazon. Damn Christopher Marlowe! 

Betsy


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

I did say 'most' and 'probably', and I was referring to this specific title where the OP mentioned the U-shaped curve of the reviews. (Mostly 5 or 1 with little in between)

I advanced my theory to explain something posted here as 'not normal'. That's all it was. I didn't say all one-star reviews on all (or even any other) listings were down to jealousy.

I apologise for not being clearer, but that's how I meant it.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I'm sure that explains the one-star reviews Shakespeare has received on Amazon. d*mn Christopher Marlowe!
> 
> Betsy


High school students forced to read Greate Workes ;-) <- forgot that last time.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Almost any best seller will have a range of reviews from one star to five stars, including Shakespeare. No book is for everyone. I found _The DaVinci Code_ ordinary and was surprised at the status it achieved.
> 
> Betsy


I gave it a one star review. And nope, I am not a writer.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

The book does have an unusually high percentage of 1-star reviews. But that just shows that opinions are widely divided on the book; some love it, some hate it. I have no intention of reading it, but the author must be doing soemthing right, a lot of people enjoyed it.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

Bestsellers often wind up as "love it or hate it". If they weren't hyped up so much as bestsellers, the people who dislike them probably wouldn't be quite so passionate about it. But it's like we feel as though we have to counter all that hype with equal amounts of negativity.


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## MEPurfield (Mar 3, 2011)

Seems like when people hate something they do with such passion. Wish that when they love something they would have the same.

Mike


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

MEPurfield said:


> Seems like when people hate something they do with such passion. Wish that when they love something they would have the same.
> 
> Mike


I do.


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

Ouch...that's painful!


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## Alton Bock (Mar 13, 2012)

There are also plenty of people out there that just want to hate what everyone else loves. They want to take the contrary position to the masses. For a movie example of this: Think of your own friends who refused to see "Titanic" just because it was so popular and everyone told them to see it.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Alton Bock said:


> There are also plenty of people out there that just want to hate what everyone else loves. They want to take the contrary position to the masses. For a movie example of this: Think of your own friends who refused to see "Titanic" just because it was so popular and everyone told them to see it.


I can't relate to that. When I hate something, I hate it. Or love it. Others opinion on same item won't change my own feelings on it one bit. 
I hated the book in the OP too. Its not hard to figure out which one is meant.

Others loved it, I hated it, couldn't even finish it. And I read it before it became so incredibly huge. 
Heck, I hated Pillars of the Earth too, another one many love. It's how the cookie crumbles. I can go through my reading list and find the books I gave 5 stars too and others will hate those, with a passion. 

And its all good. If we didn't have ushaped dislikes and likes, we'd all be running around with the same clothes, drive the same cars, eat the same ice cream etc. 

And no, I don't believe for even a second that one stars are largely made of other writers. One stars are made by readers. Books can bring out extreme emotions as they are much more personal than a toaster for example. I know I rate and review books on a very emotional level. Its how I experience books.

So a U shape I find perfectly normal in reviews. I see it all the time.
I think many tend to be more vocal when they either hate something, or love something. Maybe not so much when its good, ok and medium.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Alton Bock said:


> Think of your own friends who refused to see "Titanic" just because it was so popular and everyone told them to see it.


That was me! I refused to see it for the longest time. Then I saw it. Turns out that I was right all along! 

Having said that, I think you do a lot of people an injustice. It's not always about being contrary. Or jealous. history_lover I think nailed it: if it wasn't popular then a lot of the people who turned up not liking it simply would never have given it a chance to begin with. Perhaps because it's not the genre they typically read, or author they don't know, etc. etc. etc. But because it has become very popular the audience is larger, which doesn't only mean there are more people who like it. It also means there are a lot more people who don't like it. If authors (or singers, or filmmakers) don't want negative reviews, they should keep their art to themselves. What's that W. Somerset Maughan quote: "People ask for criticism, but they only want praise."


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I still haven't seen Titanic  . Not because it was popular and I am trying to be contrary, but because a friend of mine saw it when it first came out and she had to leave the theater because she literally got sick from motion sickness. I guess the way they filmed that. Knowing myself, I would have been in the same position. Has to do with my eyes. I cannot see 3D either. Certain visual things give me vertigo. 

So I never saw it. I can't watch TV shows with the jerky cameras. 

Plus of course its a depressing ending, so why bother.


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## Alton Bock (Mar 13, 2012)

DYB said:


> That was me! I refused to see it for the longest time. Then I saw it. Turns out that I was right all along!
> 
> Having said that, I think you do a lot of people an injustice. It's not always about being contrary. Or jealous. history_lover I think nailed it: if it wasn't popular then a lot of the people who turned up not liking it simply would never have given it a chance to begin with. Perhaps because it's not the genre they typically read, or author they don't know, etc. etc. etc. But because it has become very popular the audience is larger, which doesn't only mean there are more people who like it. It also means there are a lot more people who don't like it. If authors (or singers, or filmmakers) don't want negative reviews, they should keep their art to themselves. What's that W. Somerset Maughan quote: "People ask for criticism, but they only want praise."


I know I paint with a broad brush, but I wasn't trying to say that everyone who writes a 1-star review is just being a contrarian. Nor are all those jealous. I just meant to say that there is certainly an element of that. How big? I don't know. You hit a more important point: the Law of Averages is the great equalizer. The more people read it, the more opinion of it settles evenly in the middle.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

There is a tendency in internet reviews( be it video games, movies or smartphone apps,) to have 1 or 5 star reviews predominate. It's either a life-changing perfection, or it sucks to the utmost. I think its sad myself. We should be able to see that a few things we don't like don't make it completely worthless.

Somethings deserve 1 or 5 stars, but I feel like my average review should be somewhere in the middle.


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## Tim C. Taylor (May 17, 2011)

Chad Winters said:


> There is a tendency in internet reviews( be it video games, movies or smartphone apps,) to have 1 or 5 star reviews predominate. It's either a life-changing perfection, or it sucks to the utmost. I think its sad myself. We should be able to see that a few things we don't like don't make it completely worthless.


I would guess that's partially self-selection. In other words, for most people if it was _okay_ then they aren't moved to review.


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## charlesatan (May 8, 2012)

That and reading is subjective and personal. It also depends at what point in your life you read the book.


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## Katie Salidas (Mar 21, 2010)

history_lover said:


> Bestsellers often wind up as "love it or hate it". If they weren't hyped up so much as bestsellers, the people who dislike them probably wouldn't be quite so passionate about it. But it's like we feel as though we have to counter all that hype with equal amounts of negativity.


I completely agree with the idea that the reviews and overly positive perception of best sellers has a lot to do with the hype and less to do with the actual writing. People will forgive a lot more errors if it's popular and trendy to like a certain book. I don't want to go as far as calling it the "sheeple" phenomenon, but I lack the ability to come up with a better way to say it.


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## Randirogue (Apr 25, 2011)

Alton Bock said:


> Think of your own friends who refused to see "Titanic" just because it was so popular and everyone told them to see it.


Hehe. I saw it with some friends. We weren't fond of Leonardo DiCaprio nor the boy-crazy girly hype over him in it. We did want to seethe effects, the historical truths/myths, the (unsinkable) Molly Brown, Kate Winslet (had loved her in things like "Fierce Creartures", and to, of course, mock the boy-crazy girls girls. When Leonardo DiCaprio's character died, the group of us (a mix of girls and boys) OBNOXIOUSLY stood up and cheered, much to the boy-crazy girly girls' chagrin.

~_~ooo

As rude as we had been, I can't help but smile a little when I think back on it. The reaction of those boy-crazy girly girls' was indeed priceless. They were not happy with us. Not one iota. Tee hee. ~_~ooo


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

MEPurfield said:


> Seems like when people hate something they do with such passion. Wish that when they love something they would have the same.
> 
> Mike


I very rarely love or hate something. I'm almost always there in the middle somewhere between the two extremes. I think it's one of the more deplorable aspects of our society today that we are so polarized that we have to love or hate something. Whatever happened to just liking or not liking something?

Mike


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

jmiked said:


> I very rarely love or hate something. I'm almost always there in the middle somewhere between the two extremes. I think it's one of the more deplorable aspects of our society today that we are so polarized that we have to love or hate something. Whatever happened to just liking or not liking something?
> 
> Mike


For me personally, there are plenty of books which cover the spectrum from "hate" to "love" and everything in between. There's 5 stars to pick from when rating on Goodreads and I use all of them, not just 1 star and 5 star. And given all the ratings I see from other people on Goodreads, I see no reason to believe that's not true for most people too.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

I loath A Dance with Dragons/Song of Ice/Winter is Coming and No One Cares.

It doesn't matter to me that people are frothing at the mouth over the TV series and the books. I don't like them. Once Ned


Spoiler



died


, I didn't care what happened to anyone. The books became little more than The Song of


Spoiler



Incest and Rape and Violence


, and I got bored fast.


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## Randirogue (Apr 25, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I loath A Dance with Dragons/Song of Ice/Winter is Coming and No One Cares.


When I read that, I automatically turned into a little diddy à la "Jimmy crack corn and I don't care!"
~_~ooo


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## Steve D Palmer (Jun 28, 2012)

The 2nd and 3rd book in this series seem to have better review curves. 

My thinking is that this is a book that people might pick up on a whim having seen it on the best-sellers list. I can think of plenty of people that would be shocked, maybe even disgusted, by the content if they weren't expecting it. 

I feel sorry for authors who get hit by reviews like this - reviewers know that a 5 star or a 1 star has a bigger impact on a book's average score so that's what they do. It's bloody hard to write a novel, never mind one that hits the headlines and for someone to one-star because they're a bit on the prudish side or they're on a 'I could write something better' rant is sad. It's not difficult to find something positive to say about even the worst novel; it's not difficult to write a balanced review.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

There is no way of knowing the type of reader of the 1 star reviews. There is nothing in this book I haven't read many times over and done many times better. I am actually the full on target audience and I still hated it. Sometimes readers just hate something.

Doesn't make them prudes, or not the "target audience", or hateful, or think they can write something better. I am not a writer, so that thinking wouldn't even cross my mind. I also don't think readers need to follow any kind of rule book on how to review, be it a 5 star, a 1 star or anything in between. They only need to state their opinion and how the book made them feel.

If I think something is worth a 1 star, it gets a one star. I am not going out of my way trying to make anyone feel better. I am a customer, I spend my time reading, I get so say what I want basically. Doesn't make one any more right than any other reviewers. 
1 star and 5 star and all in between, all are right in exactly the same way, they are the readers opinion. That makes them all valid.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Yeah, I'm with Atunah.  If I took the time out of my busy life to read a book or watch a movie or listen to an album (and paid my hard earned money for it), I am entitled to express my honest opinion, good or bad.  And - from my perspective - warn others to beware about wasting their own precious time.  The artist's feelings aren't my responsibility.  And nobody gets a gold star for trying.    As I wrote above, if artists don't want to hear negative opinions then they should keep their art for themselves.  Or consider releasing their works posthumously.  Or offer me a refund.  Then maybe I'd keep my opinion to myself.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Randirogue said:


> When Leonardo DiCaprio's character died, the group of us (a mix of girls and boys) OBNOXIOUSLY stood up and cheered, much to the boy-crazy girly girls' chagrin.


Nothing obnoxious about that!!!


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## Steve D Palmer (Jun 28, 2012)

Atunah and DYB, you make some valid points. Did I just 1-star the 1-star reviews? Oops, sorry!

To tell the truth I'm reading the look-inside now and I'm nodding my head as I think back to the reviews at the low end of the scale. Perhaps I was a bit hasty coming to its defense.


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## Skate (Jan 23, 2011)

I'm always very tentative about reading a book that has been touted as a 'best-seller', 'brilliant', 'awesome' etc because I usually end up hating it. There have been a few exceptions, but only a few. 'The Emperor's New Clothes' syndrome plays a big part in the hype of book-selling in my opinion. I'd be much happier to read a book that has just as many bad reviews as good ones.


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## Chris.Livesey (Jun 29, 2012)

> There is nothing in this book I haven't read many times over and done many times better.


Couldn't have put it better.

If I've got the right series:
Book 1 was okay - initial arena scenes very exciitng and interesting though.
Book 2 - even more (self) derivative, same-old, same-old feel.
Book 3 - Read about 30 pages and deleted it.

I'd say "horribly written" was unfair but certainly repetitive and definitely boring by book 3.

If I haven't got the right book then you probably know which I'm talking about...


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

I think it is wrong to categorize 1 star reviews as just jealousy.

There are a number of books out there that really seem to provoke strong emotions one way or the other.  There are several authors who are ALWAYS on the best-seller lists, and I just don't see it.  Can't stand their books.  Obviously others have a different opinion.  Likewise, there are many mid-listers that I adore and they never seem to 'break-out' into bestseller status.

When you don't enjoy a book that is extremely popular, it does feel a little like salt in the wound if there are tons of technical errors.  I try not to get too hung up on it.  It takes a lot of effort to write and publish a book.  If other people are enjoying the book, good for them.  I'll give my opinion, but I don't see any reason to tear an author down just because I didn't care for it.  Literature, like all art, is subjective and will affect different people different ways.


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

I agree with other comments here: when expectations are set high (as in bestseller status), the reactions are more passionate, especially when the consumer (reader) feels let down. Negative surprises make people react strongly. The positive thing is, it doesn't seem to have hurt this authors status on the bestseller list, so there's hope for us all


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Chris.Livesey said:


> Couldn't have put it better.
> 
> If I've got the right series:
> Book 1 was okay - initial arena scenes very exciitng and interesting though.
> ...


I don't think that is the right book, or at least not the one I thought this is about. I just compared the numbers listed for reviews. Don't know anything about any arena, but I only read I think like 40% of it. Book I am talking about is on the um, "kinky" side.

Is there a reason we can't say the actualy name of the book? . Is this like Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice?


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Almost any best seller will have a range of reviews from one star to five stars, including Shakespeare. No book is for everyone. I found _The DaVinci Code_ ordinary and was surprised at the status it achieved.
> 
> Betsy


I'd call The DaVinci Code a fascinating book, but a lousy novel.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Almost any best seller will have a range of reviews from one star to five stars, including Shakespeare. No book is for everyone. I found _The DaVinci Code_ ordinary and was surprised at the status it achieved.
> 
> Betsy


I found _The DaVinci Code_ unreadable. Got about halfway through and set my borrowed hardcover down on the floor, next to the bed. A dog ate it, so I had to go buy a copy to replace the loaner. Man, buying a hardback of a book you hate is a painful experience.


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## Alpha72 (May 9, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Almost any best seller will have a range of reviews from one star to five stars, including Shakespeare. No book is for everyone. I found _The DaVinci Code_ ordinary and was surprised at the status it achieved.
> 
> Betsy


Agreed.


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