A blogger rant: The 1 & 2 star review

The one or two star review:

My biggest reviewer pet peeve is when someone calls a book "trash" without backing up what they thought was so "trashy". Or comment with any other similar insults. I do not see this in the blogger community but I see it A LOT when I am trolling Amazon looking for free eBooks.

I run across this predominately in the erotica category, but it is not exclusive. It’s like people don’t read the descriptions of the books BEFORE they download the content and start reading, then when they find out that there is *gasp* graphic sexual content, they immediately come onto Amazon and proceed to give the book a 1 or 2 stars and proceed to trash the book because they perceive it to be “trashy”. People if you had read the description you would have known that the book would contain sexual content.

If you hated a book, fine, but back it up! I found what I perceived to be a fairly helpful 1 star review.

Helpful:

 “By Lucy

I am a 40 something year old woman who gave this book a try because it looked interesting, and it was very inexpensive to buy on kindle. I found the book somewhat entertaining, if I were only still 14. I thought of lending it to my 13 year old niece, but found it too R rated. Blood, guts & sex. So, to sum it up, I did not find the plot stimulating for an adult mind, yet, it contained parts too adult for an inexperienced young teenager to comprehend. I think the author could have had a fantastic book, if she would have focused on the young adult reader, & left out the R rated parts.“

See, they didn’t care for the book, yet they explained why in a concise manner.

Example 1:

Here is an example of seriously did you read the description.

Disclaimer as written in the description:

“This novella is for mature audiences only and contains a feisty play-girl witch with a sarcastic attitude, some red-hot were-bear loving of the menage variety, jealous lovers, claws and fangs galore, and some roadside nookie hot enough to melt the tires from the truck. This book contains M/F/M interaction.”

“0 of 5 people found the following review helpful

1.0  out of 5 stars Listen to Magic Reader, April 18, 2012

By Magic *******

Look it was a nasty book, makes a girl feel dirty just reading it. If your under thirteen trust me when I say "do not read this!" Only someone sick would enjoy reading trash like this. “

*What part of “for mature audiences only” did you not get? And really people who may enjoy enjoy erotica are now “sick”… This is not a constructive review in the slightest. I actually did read this novella, M/F/M is not my usual cup of tea, but I thought the author did a fairly good job with it. I do not in the slightest consider myself “sick” because I enjoyed this novella, and I was warned beforehand that this will have M/F/M interaction so I could not be mad that it was in the book. If I didn’t like it, hey I was warned so that’s my bad! I’m just saying.

Example 2:

“Taryn Malloy is a Bright Elf, her magic lives in her blood, fueled by sex and lust. Recovering from a terrible break-up, Taryn’s best friend, Roxy, decides it’s time for Taryn to get back in the game. She’s wallowed long enough and let her magic diminish to a dangerous level. Tonight, Roxy is taking Taryn out to a club that caters to the carnal needs of the supernatural community of their city. Roxy is determined to make Taryn forget about Cillian and she knows the only way to get over one elf is to get on top of another. A night of elves, fairies, vampires, revenge and more is exactly what Taryn needs.”

Two bad 1 star review and 1 decent 1 star review:

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

1.0  out of 5 stars Meh, January 22, 2012

By Esmeralda

This book fell a little flat for me. I thought the characters were barely developed. Their main traits seemed to be that they were all EXTREMELY hot with barely a comment on their peronalities beyond this. The storyline was boring and predictable and all the emphasis was on the sex which, to be honest didn't titillate me. I understand that the book is meant to be erotica but for me, erotica without a meaninful story is a bit pointless. The characters are supposed to be supernatural creatures yet they act no different from teenaged humans. The main character breaks down for weeks because her boyfriend left her and then decides to get back at him when she meets him in a sex club. I prefer my supernatural creatures to ... y'know, do supernatural stuff in supernatural environments.I feel that the sex scenes could have perhaps been improved with a bigger build up of tension.

I feel that this book had a lot of potential to develop interesting characters (Andre and that hunter elf dude) further but by focussing on Cillian the book failed to deliver.

I downloaded this book as it was free and my intention isn't to deter anybody from reading it, this book just wasn't for me.

*Customer didn’t like the book, but focused on why and what went wrong, not just that the book was porn or trash

1.0  out of 5 stars Thinly vieled porn, January 25, 2012

By Kathleen:

Although reasonably well-written, this is a very shallowly-plotted, blatent piece of pornography. If the special effects can be managed, it would make an excellent porn film script. Absolutely NOT apropriate for young adults or the unsuspecting average fantasy enthusiast.

*Um what part of the description of this book even remotely implies that it would be good for young adults and how were you unsuspecting? It spells it out in the description!

4 of 23 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Porn should be marked with a Triple XXX, January 5, 2012

By R 

This book was nothing more than a triple XXX Book and it should be marked as such.

If I had known what it was really about I would not have downloaded it. After reading several pages I removed it from my kindle.

If others want to read this kind of garbage, that's fine. However, those of us who don't care to read it would appreciate some kind of warning ON THE TITLE PAGE. Like an idiot I didn't read any of the sample because I mistakenly thought, Elf bitten, Fantasy, Great! Just what I'm looking for. Yeah, yeah, I know there are those out there who will flame me because you think it's ok to be deceitful and besides what's a little porn here and there, right?

I really don't give a rip. Amazon should mark ALL X rated or other books of that ilk clearly so those of us who enjoy a good story and don't need or want or care to fantasize with other people's sexual fantasies can simply click and purchase without concern that they will be misled.

I would sure as the dickens not let my friends know I had downloaded this thing. I understand Amazon that you put deleted stuff in the cloud. Would you please delete this OUT of my little part of the cloud?

*Seriously! You just gave an author of the book a 1 start because you didn’t read the description and because you feel mislead on how Amazon doesn’t have an X rating. Really!? This author did not deserve a 1 star rating because you can’t read.

Sorry about my venting, I just have been seeing this more and more the more free eBook posts I do and it drives me BONKERS! A lot of times these are new authors and don’t have a lot of ratings to begin with so one 1 star really drops the books overall rating. This could be detrimental to that author and all because the reviewer didn’t pay attention to what that were about to read. ERG!

Rant over,