I never thought it was a good idea for anyone to read and review books they are not genuinely interested in. But when somebody is interested enough in a book to buy it, it would be nice if they could also take a moment and leave a short one or two- sentence review or at least a rating. That’s all. And most people just don’t and that, unfortunately, does have an impact. I have to admit that I too take the reviews under consideration as a buyer and when book doesn’t have any, that can be a problem.
For unknown authors, even bad reviews can be better than no reviews:
It’s also true, though, as you pointed out, that reviews can be unreliable since there is no standard set in place. I, for instance, have seen and received 3-star reviews that at the same time praised the book. Why only 3-stars then? No idea! And then you see books where the opinions are divided and range from severely negative to passionately positive. Again, how and why this happens is anyone’s guess. So it’s tricky.
I love the idea of having some sort of a rubric or rating system in place that would make reviews a bit more objective and less subjective.
