The Deletion Dilemma

[jeriendhal]

I'm feeling a bit conflicted here.

Background: A couple of years back I got a nice thank you gift of a couple of free e-books from haikujaguar, in return for putting together TVTropes pages for her Kherishdar and Spots the Space Marine. One of the stories she gave me was her early work Alysha's Fall, which was one of her founding stories in her Pelted universe, and that I was looking forward to reading.

I hated it.

Hated it.

Hated hated hatey hatehatehated james_nicoll-reviewing-later-Robert-Heinlein-level hated hated hated it. [1]

So, to put it bluntly, I dropped a page long, ranty, One Star review bomb at Amazon, detailing everything that stuck in my craw about the tale until I gave up trying to read it and deleted it off my Kindle.

I was reminded of it, somewhat guiltily, after Hogarth posted a note to her own LJ, about her income from her books actually earning her twice as much as her day job this month. Which in of itself is great news. She works hard at her craft, and aside from Alysha's Fall her stories are almost uniformly excellent. So I went over to Amazon to the review I'd posted to look at it again.

Out of fourteen reviews, it's received the most "helpful" clicks.[2] Which means it's the first review anyone sees when they start scrolling through them.

Err...

Look, I don't like Alysha's Fall. I seriously doubt I'll ever like Alysha's Fall. But plenty of other people do. Every other review save for a single Three Star are either Four or Five. Mostly Five. And Hogarth is putting her kid through private school with the money she makes, while I mostly use my profits to buy a new video game every month few months. On the other hand I'm not outright ashamed of it either. I think my points of contention are valid, and I stand by them. But I really don't like the idea of my rant against it being the first thing people see. So I'm faced with the notion of just deleting it entirely and letting the more positive reviews take the lead.

Opinions?

[Poll #1997483]


[1] Well, okay, maybe I didn't hate it quite that much, but in the words of Opus the Penguin, "Lord knows it wasn't good."

[2] Eight out of nine clicks. I shall refrain from guessing whom the single negative vote was from. :/

Comments

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

I believe I remember that one. Something about having to resort to prostitution to pay tuition for a military academy, and being raped repeatedly with having her hymen restored in between?

I REALLY REALLY APRRECIATE THE WARNING ABOUT SHIT LIKE THAT. ugh.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Leave it! :)

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

As you will, Milady. :)

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

The bad reviews serve as well as the good ones, and books that are heavy on triggers and awful material need them even more than the mild books. I would rather someone read your bad review and go "AUGH NOT FOR ME" than buy the book based on a raft of 5-star reviews from people who needed that book only to discover it was full of stuff that horrified and upset them.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I was kinda wondering why you'd put up with it otherwise. :)

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Fiffle. Am I to demand that everyone worship me? God, I would be insufferable! Worse, I would be fragile, because the first person who said 'I don't like your books' would destroy me.

I have not read your review, but I don't doubt that no matter how much you feel you ranted, you also explained why you were ranting, and that's really all we can ask of a good review. Even when it's a bad one. *nods*

Having said that, I feel bad for giving you as gift something you hated!

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

Look at it like this: By giving people who do not want to read that stuff the warning, couched in "her other writing is much better" stuff, you may be preventing other people from buying, then returning, and then going on an entirely uncushioned rant.

[siderea]

The woman herself has spoken, but I was going to say something similar: your review is critically important to people who need to be warned about how rape and trauma are handled in the story. You expressed yourself respectfully, sensitively, and thoughtfully, and I'm probably going to use this as my go-to example of How To Write A Strongly Negative Review Of The Work Of Someone You Care For And About.

And for what it's worth, there may well be sexual trauma survivors who read your review and go, "You know, that speaks to me, because as weak as the premises were to set up the situation, boy that situation sounds psychologically familiar. Gets revenge you say? Okay, deal me in."

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*nods* The people who like it like it because it's a survivor-against-all-odds story, and they tell me quietly that they needed that narrative. But for people who don't want that, or for whom it would be a terrible trigger--they need to know too.

[rix_scaedu]

One of the most useful movie reviews I ever read was for a movie that the reviewer didn't like. However he said why he didn't like it which was basically 'the director does X thing that he did in previous movie that I didn't like there either.' I'd seen previous movie, thoroughly enjoyed it, possibly because of X thing, so went to see the reviewed movie - and thoroughly enjoyed it.

So to repeat others who've already posted, the right sort of negative review can actually get more people in to read or watch the reviewed item.

[seawasp]

Honest reviews, good or bad, stay. The only reviews of my stuff I don't like are the ones that give no REASON for either liking or disliking the book (or have some IRRELEVANT reason, like the guy who gave one of my books a one-star review some years ago because... there was no Kindle edition.)

[zarpaulus.livejournal.com]

Huh, didn't realize the tuition thing was out of place until I read that review. Now that I've noticed it I would probably chalk it up to the Pelted's lack of military experience that just about every one of their Terran officers mentions.

[sraun]

I see the author has already weighed in and settled the question, but I'll toss my two cents in anyway.

For authors I've run across randomly, the one star reviews gave me a better picture than the four and five star reviews. An honest one star review that explains exactly why the reviewer doesn't like the book/movie/whatever can frequently be more helpful than the four and five star reviews. I can look at the reasons and causes, and evaluate how my biases, likes, and dislikes, match the reviewers, and make a more informed decision.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

The data blog for OKCupid shook out an interesting finding--women with a lot of five-star ratings and some one-stars get more attention than women with uniform four- and five-star ratings. The theory was that being a great fit for a niche is better for motivating men to reach out than being a good fit for anyone.

I suspect book reviews may have a similar phenomenon. The few one stars say "this is not generic for everyone material, but the ones who love it, really love it." That makes me a bit more likely to hand out the cash if I feel I'm in the target market.

OTOH, sometimes one-star reviews just show the reviewer is an idiot. Such as the guy who one-starred a historical YA about Anne Frank for not being sufficiently sympathetic to German supporters of National Socialism.