Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post hosted by Rainy Day Ramblings. She will discuss a wide range of topics from books to blogging. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments of her original post (which you can find a link to below), or comment on my post. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog!
This Weeks Topic:
When you first started blogging were you hesitant to give out a low rating? Has this changed? Do you give one-star reviews?
Technically that is not this week's question, but I wasn't really feeling it. Since I accidently missed the last two weeks topics, I decided to combine them and do them this week!
I touched on this topic a little bit in my last Tell Me Something Tuesday. When I first started blogging, I felt a lot of pressure when it came to reviews. In order to receive that book for review one of two things had to happen. Either the author contacted me or I contacted them. So there really is a personal interaction in order to receive a book for review. With this being said, it is very different to review a book once you know that author is not only a real person, but a real person who is waiting to read your review.
Thinking back I don't think I have ever bumped up a rating out of guilt. I definitely felt the guilt, and I definitely tried to make up for the rating in the review by trying to use constructive criticism as the reasoning for the low rating. I still do that to this day, because it is just simply not nice to say, "I gave this book one star, because it sucked." It is much more respectful to say, "I gave this book one star, because there was poor character development. Example a..."
But the guilt of it all was still very present, regardless. It would take forever for me to write those reviews, because I just felt so bad, but I had to remind myself to stick to my guns.
This has slightly changed since then. I still feel guilty, but not as much as I used to. Plus, I know that my review is always constructive and respectful. I have also gotten MUCH better at being more selective when accepting/requesting books for review. If I have the slight inkling I may not like it, I turn it down. I have also gotten much better with time management. If I don't like a book, i'll stop reading it. I no longer force myself to finish it. If it happens to be a book I accepted for review, I let the author know that it ended up not being the book for me and that I couldn't finish it. Luckily, I have never had an author be offended by this. They understand not everyone will love their book and respect me for letting them know via email rather than my review.
This brings me to the matter of the one-star review. Yes, I do them. I know...shocking! If I downright hate a book or don't finish it, it gets a one-star. However, they usually don't get put on the blog. I will post my one-star rating on Goodreads with a reasoning for why, but I usually don't post them on the blog unless I have something substantial to say. If it just wasn't a book for my liking so I didn't finish it, there really isn't much to say other than that so, I don't waste my time posting on here about it. If I hated the book for very specific reasons, and felt very strongly about it, it may end up on the blog.
I also don't post my one-star review anywhere other than goodreads, unless I write a review for it. There are two reasons for this. #1 I don't like leaving books on my goodreads shelf ratingless. #2 If the only reason I gave it a one-star review was because it just wasn't the book for me, the entire world doesn't need to know. I also don't need to bring down the rating on the book on every rating platform it has, either. Now, if it got a one-star because I hated it, say because it was offensive and I write a review on the blog for it, you better believe i'm posting that one-star everywhere!
How do you feel about this topic? Let me know in the comments below!
Next Week's Topic:
TBA
