With the haste of packing the bags at 3am on the morning of my flight, I’m feeling tired. But today I will be briefly touching on book reviews.
I realised earlier today that I have yet to finish a book that is being published in the UK tomorrow! Sorry NetGalley, I’m currently working on getting through it! PS! I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney and I’m absolutely hooked!
Most of my TBR has grown because of the reviews I’ve read online and bookstagram recommendations. Which means that I mostly buy a book because of a good book review. Not necessarily 5 star reviews, but more so about how the book made the reader feel.
So my question to you today is:
How often do you read book reviews before deciding to add it to your to be read pile? Do the reviews change your mind about reading/not reading the book?
I do tend to trust reviews. That doesn’t mean I won’t read it if it gets back reviews, but I tend to look at reviews to see if they mention things I dislike seeing in books. (And there have been times when a bunch of reviewers were like, “This is the WORST BOOK EVER!!!!!!!!!!” and I added it to my TBR list despite that. For fiction, though; if people reviewed a nonfiction book in that way, I’d stay away! And it highly depends on why they’re saying it’s the worst. If it’s the worst because it’s racist or hateful, I’m steering clear of that book! If they just don’t like the main character but the story still interests me, I’ll still read it.)
Agreed! If the story sounds like something I think I’d enjoy, I would still read it. Mainly to just make up my own mind about it. There are so many different tastes out there that sometimes you just need to ignore other people’s opinions and form your own 🙂