Welcome to the Ratings Casino
Let’s talk about book reviews, a sore subject for all the writers I know.
I’m not talking about the pieces published in the LA Times, New York Times, or Wall Street Journal, or the little book blurbs that appear in the pages of women’s magazines next to the latest trends in ankle socks and the Pantone color of the year.
The reviews that send writers into alternating spasms of elation and heartburn are those that come with stars, 1 to 5. Amazon and Goodreads (same owner) are the most prominent.
The idea is to do for books what Yelp does for restaurants and plumbers. Not a bad idea on the face of it, even if what Ms. A or Mr. B think about Book Y has very little to do with how anybody else might feel. And buying a book has a much smaller impact on a budget than, say, a fridge or a stove. I will read the reviews for appliances, cars, and dentists. I want to know if the microwave will crap out after two weeks. And a doctor with glowing reviews has a better chance to get my business than a 1-star quack.
But book ratings?
Bloggers regularly compile hilarious lists of rotten reviews of famous books. Here’s one on Mashable – my favorite is the reader who says that his rabbit could have written a better 1984 than George Orwell.
Pretty funny until it gets seriously unhinged.
A recent kerfuffle rocked Goodreads—yes, I know, it’s a tsunami in a rain puddle … humor me.
A writer, using a slew of fake accounts, posted scathing reviews of books she viewed as “her competition”. She was unmasked with disastrous consequences for her publishing future.
The incident is disturbing on multiple levels.
First is the notion of competition between writers as if book reading was a zero-sum game. Every Raymond Chandler I read reduces the number of Dashiell Hammetts I can absorb. Silly, even if there’s a finite number of hours in a day. I sure hope people that read books aren’t on a quota: Two books this year, that’s it. Sorry, buddy, I’m done. See you in 2025.
Next, and more toxic, is the reliance on “what the crowd thinks”, vox populi for the digital age. The mini-Machiavelli mentioned above believed that her ratings would sink the books she targeted. Who’s to say she was wrong? Social media has latched on and profited from humanity’s herd mentality. It started with cute cat videos that didn’t harm anybody. What gets eyeballs these days is rarely cute, fluffy, or furry.
A perverse logic applies to ratings. A 1-star review pushes a book down a lot more than a 5-stars lifts it up. Perception and mathematics are at odds. It’s like the ratings for the fridge or the convection oven. Of course I’ll read the nasty bits first, don’t you? But that’s where the analogy stops. What’s useful information for a kitchen implement is of little value when it comes to entertainment. Or art. Venus de Milo, no arms, 1-star.
Reading fiction or poetry is an intensely personal experience, mine won’t be yours, and tastes are all over the place. To make things even more elusive, a reader’s reaction to a book will change with time and mood. I was telling a friend a few weeks ago, here on Substack, that I devoured Frank Herbert’s Dune when I was a kid. I opened my old battered copy again when the new movie came out, and I couldn’t make it past page 5. Hey, big reveal, I’m not sixteen anymore. What would my star rating be, now or then?
Talking about a book that shakes up the ratings, and the reviewers, like a pinball machine, I read Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho when it came out. I threw that book very hard all the way across my sitting room. Then, because I’m stubborn and I thought I might have missed something (insert a cackle!), I picked it up again a few days later and tore through it. State of mind, external temperature, solar flares …
So what’s a reader to do if the rating stars are as fluttering as Tinkerbell?
What did we do before technology pretended to help us make decisions?
I remember spending hours in bookshops, browsing. It’s harder to do now. Unless you live in a sizable town, bookshops are rare and far between. Libraries are still around, mostly catering to retirees and kids with school assignments. Both places give prime placement to best sellers. So do online platforms, by far the biggest peddlers of literature. Emerging writers with small presses and indie publishers have a steep hill to climb. They have to rely on word-of-mouth, i.e. social media, reviews, and … ahem, ratings!
Pardon my chuckle.