Yup, I have some thoughts on this! Read on…... I read in a Goodreads reviews that the reviewer always slightly “upstars” because she knows that there is a reader for every book……..and I LOVED that sentiment! That’s why, as a matter of policy, I will never post a purely negative or slamming review of a book on Instagram, Twitter, or tumblr. I may give my conditional opinion for my 1-star reviews on Goodreads - why it was a 1 for me, but who I think it might be higher for. That’s why I post so many 3-stars on Goodreads - I enjoyed reading it (didn’t LOVE), but know there is a perfect audience for the book. Anything lower than 3 I simply won’t do a review of on my social media accounts. I use social media to spread my book love and connect with other readers, but as I have learned through extensive readers’ advisory training and on-the-job application, I know just how diverse reading tastes are. For example, there may be 5 books I read in any given week, all of which I L-O-V-E. Of my 2 best friends, sister, mom and librarian buddy, all of whom I talk books to all the time, I will recommend ONE of these 5 books to each of those people. A different one to each person! I know so well that if I recommend the nonfiction heavy-hitting social policy book to one person, she’ll not only never read it but won’t love it as much as I do. If I recommend the sappy romance book to my mom, she’ll find it ridiculous. AND, for every book I detest, I know someone who loved it. That’s the awesome thing about books! And why I refuse to slam anything publicly. Who am I to tell anyone not to pick up a book? Like the YA dystopian novel I wanted to love, but just couldn’t…….probably because the setting and premise were too far into the sci fi zone for my taste. But I know high school students who will absolutely inhale that book! Why ruin it for anyone with my negative opinion??? So that’s that! You will see the books I like and love and you’ll get all my book-evangelism, and none of my book-disdain. Love trumps hate, right? And here are my thoughts on the integrity of my reviews of advanced review copies! I have the blessing of having access to a wide variety of pre-release titles and am able to share my thoughts on these books with my book friends online. First of all, I don’t even read ARC’s of titles I have zero interest in. I couldn’t write a good review regardless of the quality of the book, so it wouldn’t be fair to the book or author. With that being said, here’s my policy on books I receive pre-publication: (1) I will share the majority of them as #currentlyreading when I first start them (if I am enjoying the beginning of the book) (2) I will do my very best to write honest reviews for all of the books I finish reading and have time to review, BUT I will never publish a purely negative and slamming review of these titles either. I won’t upstar them, but I may just choose not to mention them. 3) I will tag all books I receive as #arc and #advancereviewcopy so people know I received them for free. If I review an ARC, please trust my review as the same as if I had checked the book out from the library - I paid zero money for it and read it because I wanted to. No one pays me to review the titles and I have zero obligation to post a positive review. I do, however, love to promote authors, and especially NEW authors, who write books I love! If I say I love a book/author, I do ~ simple as that.
