Let's Review

I am off work this week because it is school holidays, and it was something of a surprise to me that it was Thursday! And now it is even more of a surprise that it is late on Monday night! How bad is that! Anyway, last week's Booking Through Thursday question was:

This week’s question is suggested by Puss Reboots:

How much do reviews (good and bad) affect your choice of reading? If you see a bad review of a book you wanted to read, do you still read it? If you see a good review of a book you’re sure you won’t like, do you change your mind and give the book a try?

I get most of my book recommendations from reader reviews or because the author is one that I already know that I like so I would say that reviews do affect my choice of reading quite a lot. Having said that, if there is a book that I wanted to read and it gets a bad review I will still read it because there are some books that people love that I just don't feel the same way about and vice versa. Just recently, I read a review of a book that I gave 5/5 a couple of years of ago, but the reviewer thought it was a wall banger. This was a person that I normally totally agree with, but I guess it was bound to happen. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Getting a book on my TBR list isn't all that difficult - if I see a mention and it looks remotely interesting I'll add it. What good or bad reviews might do is actually encourage me to move it up or down the list.

I have to admit though I am someone who can be tempted to read a book if there is a passionate disagreement between people about. A while ago there was a big kerfuffle on one of the boards I moderate on about a specific book that ended up being quite a hostile situation. At first my reaction was something along the lines of "well if you think that I am going to read that book you must be joking" but after a couple of days I was still wondering if it was going to be as good or as bad as the various parties suggested so when I noticed it on the library catalogue I borrowed it. In the end, I returned it unread just because I ran out of renewals, and haven't reborrowed it again, and probably won't because the people who were so fanatically divided have not bothered to revisit the site again, and so apparently were just in it for the argument, so I can't be bothered anymore with it.