About a week ago I was reading a lot of book reviews on Goodreads. I was trying to find out if some free books I had were decent, or not worth my time. They have a 5 star rating system. My sister had already warned me not to look at the 5 star reviews. They tend to be worthless, all they do is talk about how this was the best book ever, and the author is amazing and the plot was new and fantastic and the characters are well developed and awesome. Some of the 4 star reviews are like that too. With everything they say, they say nothing at all except that the reviewer liked it.
It was kind of interesting though, because I found the 1 star reviews to be much the same (not quite as useless as 5 stars but close). They just rave about how pointless this book was, how they hated it and didn't finish it. How the plot was predictable and stupid and the characters were flat. Pretty much just the opposite of the 5s.
Overall it seemed like 2 and 3 star reviews (and the occasional 4 star) were far more helpful. They didn't rave or rant, they were more even minded. Some explained the plot, others listed things they did or did not like. Their reviews were not punctuated by profanity or exclamation points, and overall they seemed more likely to explain actual details of the plot, characters, and writing.
I guess it shouldn't be a surprise to find that someone who is not quite as emotionally involved actually makes a better argument. It's just a good reminder that the next time someone comes to you raving or ranting about how good or bad someone treated them... their story might not be entirely just.
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