Making Up for Monday: Negative Reviews

Hosted by An Avid Reader; A Wannabe Writer

Each week, there will be a book-related theme or game, or something fun to do that week. And you can play along! All you have to do is find the question for that week and write a post that day based on that question.

This Week's Topic/Question:

How do you feel about giving negative reviews?

My Answer:

I'll answer this with kind of a personal statement, "This blog is my blog. These words consist of my thoughts and personal opinions alone. I know I am not the center of the universe and I am not the type to think I'm aways right and never wrong." That said, I have no qualms about giving a negative review.

I figure if you are on my site, you want to know what I think. Why sugarcoat a negative review? You just sound phony and no one will respect you for it. The reader will not trust you and chances are, they won't be back. The best I do is try not to be mean to the author or insulting to those who liked it. Everything else is fair game.

Also, negative reviews aren't always a reflection of the book being bad. One of the most passionate negative reviews I ever wrote was because I felt characters from a beloved trilogy, Kelley Armstrong's The Darkest Powers, were poorly represented when they popped up in her companion series. Yep, I accuse Kelley of defamation of her own characters! I take such strong offense to this because I love The Darkest Powers series that much. It's a rare gem because the last book is so much more amazing than the two that came before; it's flawless from beginning to end. I wanted more by the time I got to the end of the sereis and read all the novella (Belonging!!! OMG I fangirl over that novella so hard!)  And then she gave it to me more in The Darkness Rising series -- and all I wanted to do was give it back. 

The review in question for The Rising from the Darkness Rising series hasn't made it's way here, but here it is on Goodreads if you curious (warning the conclusion of the companion series; thar be spoilers afoot).