Then a couple weeks later when I went to post my review of Room by Emma Donoghue I saw a review someone had posted that day. It gave the book 1 star. The reviewer said he/she only got 10 pages into it and then had to stop because the subject matter was too scary for him/her.
Actually this kind of stuff happens a lot because a lot of people are idiots. For instance, I noted a lot of people on the Blockbuster Video website who hated the Ben Stiller movie "Greenberg" were people who didn't read the description or any reviews and just assumed since Ben Stiller was involved it would be a slapstick comedy like "Meet the Parents" and his various other cinematic atrocities. So when they realized it was a slower-paced dramedy they were all pissed off about it and panned the movie. Or when Grumpy Bulldog bought the Sufjan Stevens album "Age of Adz" in 2010 just assuming it would be like his previous indie pop albums and then found out it was all this electronica bullshit and panned it on Amazon. (Well also I panned it because the last song was 25 fucking minutes repeating the same shit over and over again until it drove me mad.)
I dare you to listen to the whole thing!
In all cases you know who should be getting one star? YOU. Or ME. In other words, the dumb-ass audience who was too lazy and dumb to realize what they were reading/ watching/listening to. It's the type of thing that does a huge disservice to authors and also to the idea of customer reviews because it justifies snobby critics who think only those employed by newspapers, magazines, and literary journals are qualified to have an opinion.
And in all cases what was missing was the objectivity to separate our personal feelings from the merits of the book/movie/album. You can't give a book 1-star because its subject matter violates your moral standards. And to say a book is well-written but you couldn't stomach the subject matter and gave it 1 star is the height of stupidity. Because it's not the author's fault you didn't know what you were reading. The author doesn't know you and thus he/she doesn't give a shit about your little hangups. So you not enjoying that book was on you, not the author.
The thing is, if we're going to pop off about a book or movie or album or whatever we need to be at least a little objective. Just because we don't enjoy something doesn't mean it's terrible. At the very least you should give it 3-stars and say it was well-put-together but I just couldn't get into it. That's at least somewhat more objective. Save the 1 star reviews for the books/movies/albums that really deserve it, like any Adam Sandler comedy made in the last 12 years.
I'll be talking more about Sandler and other sell-outs tomorrow!
I keep hoping Sandler will make a good movie. There was one that I liked that was really different than the others, but I forget what it was called.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree - reviews should be about the writing, not the reader's subject matter preferences. If you don't like the subject matter, don't read it.
I'm about 99% with you on this, in that if you truly don't like a genre, you should probably not be reviewing it. Where I separate a bit are two places.
ReplyDeleteFirst, you mention Sufjan Stevens. That brought to mind U2's foray into electronica, Zooropa -- and album I personally liked quite a bit but which I believe was generally regarded as awful.
When someone you like branches out into new territory -- Grisham's "A Painted House" or "Playing For Pizza", as another example -- I feel that as a fan of the OLD version of that person, I am entitled to review the new one and hope the intangibles of whatever I liked carried over. That is, if Grisham's a great writer (and he is) his talent should carry over to the new genre, in which case I'm reviewing the talent and not the genre.
Again, though, I agree you need to be careful: If Grisham wrote a YA book about vampires and I reviewed it and said "It sucks 'cause vampires are for losers, duh," that's neither helpful nor fair -- except insofar as I'm commenting on Grisham's choice of a stupid subject.
The other way I think such criticism might be valid is to the extent that the person is reaching for an audience beyond the clearly-intended core group of people who love that thing. Rihanna, for example, releases a lot of hip-hopish stuff aimed not just at teens who like terrible music, but at the Top-40 audience, so there's a certain fairness in me reviewing a Rihanna song and saying "I don't care for the genre," insofar as she's trying to get me to care about it.
It doesn't sound, though, like the people reviewing these two books did that. And in particular, the review of "Room" sounds incredibly dumb: To say that the book frightened the reviewer that much, I think, is kind of a compliment.
I rarely read reviews on Amazon, though, because I'm not generally interested in what other regular people thought; I tend to go by the description of the book/movie/etc. and choose for myself.
I think if you're going to be responsible in reviewing stuff you have to take yourself out of the equation at least a little. And different genres require a different mindset. When I reviewed "The Hunger Games" it obviously wasn't as well-written as anything by John Irving or Kurt Vonnegut but you can't really expect that. It was entertaining and held my interest, which is about all I expected from it. Kind of like if I go to the theater and watch "Captain America" it's a different expectation than if I go watch "The Artist" or "The Descendants." Obviously a comic book movie I'm just hoping for a lot of action and explosions; I'm not going in expecting to get any big philosophical revelations out of it.
DeleteAnyway, maybe I should just create an online class for writing customer reviews.
So you'd agree with Alexander Hamilton, who said, "The masses are asses!"
ReplyDeleteYou're right about these reviews, though. It seems that the author is delivering on what he promised, maybe too well.
I agree with you for the most part, but Briane brings up a good point about audience expectations. If someone wanted to write Christian self help books and erotica then I would think the should expect mixed reviews - that author probably shouldn't keep writing in both genres without a pseudonym for at least one of them.
ReplyDeleteThe same reason folks get mad at movies like Drive, which was pretty good I thought, but it still got a lot of grief because it was marketed towards the Fast and Furious audience. It wasnt that kind of movie.
I didn't make a point, whatever. I've typed too much on my phone to go back and edit now.
You make a good point concerning things like "Drive" where sometimes it's the marketing department that shapes false expectations. Like when I watched the preview for "Swimming With Sharks" I thought it was an office comedy like "Office Space" but then the movie was a lot darker than that.
DeleteI see the same thing frequently. People giving 1 or 2 star reviews because it wasn't something they would ever like in the first place. You would think people would at least have the sense to realize it before leaving the "review". I think we have become a society of reviewing and rating too many things. I often wonder if it would be better if people could leave reviews without the rating and getting rid of those silly stars.
ReplyDeleteBut without the stars how would people easily know what stinks?
DeleteThey would have to come to their own conclusions based on the review.
DeleteI think the two things are different. The stars about how you felt about the piece. If you look at the stars part of it, it clearly states it's about whether you liked it or not. That's a purely subjective thing they're asking for there, so saying "I didn't like it" for whatever reason is completely valid, because the feeling of not liking something is valid.
ReplyDeleteI also can't really fault someone for trying something they think they won't like, because I try to get my son to do that all the time with food.
However, a review is something different. A review needs to be objective enough that you can say -why- you didn't like something. Or why you liked it. If you can't figure that out, you shouldn't review it.
Also, I don't think anyone should offer a review or rating on something they didn't actually read/view/whatever. That's just not fair to the creator. If you could only get 10 pages into it, that's fine, but you have no business rating or reviewing the entire book, because, guess what, you didn't read it.
Well I agree. But you're wrong if you think they can't go on and give a one-star review of a book if they don't like the subject matter. They are allowed to do exactly that. It's just the system. I think what you are vocalizing is what I would refer to as, "trying to push the tide back with a broom." Good luck with that.
ReplyDelete