Recently I've been thinking about how blogger reviews affect my experience with reading. Generally I tried not to read reviews until I had already book in order to have the purest experience. I didn't want to have other people's impressions in my mind. But lately I have been peeking at reviews...with mixed results.
For example, there was Grave Mercy, a book whose hype overwhelmed it for me. I read so many rave reviews and while I did love the book, it couldn't quite live up to all the praise I saw heaped upon it. Would my experience have been different if I had read the book before the reviews? I think so because I would have found everything more surprising.
However I found it helpful in the case of Various Positions. I read several disappointed reviews and expected to find myself similarly unhappy. But I ended up actually kind of liking it because I was prepared for what the story was actually about instead of what I wanted the story to be about based on the cover.
Another kind of experience came with The Immortal Rules, which I was not initially very excited about because I don't like vampire stories. But I liked that this seemed to be darker with the MC grappling with her new nature in addition to not being a paranormal romance. I gave it a shot and found it very good, having been prepped by the many, many bloggers who had already read and reviewed it.
In general though I will continue trying to avoid reviews before the book especially if I know I will be reading the book soon. I can just bookmark the page and return at a later date (which may be why you sometimes get a comment on a very old post :) once I've had a time to digest the book and feel up to leaving a thoughtful comment.
What about you? Do you read reviews before the book itself? How has it affected your reading experience?
I feel the exact same way about reading reviews before I read a book! I like to think that my opinions are always my own, but a lot of the time, how much I enjoy it depends on what I think of the book before I even open the first page! My least favourite is when there's so much hype around a book that you expect something mind-blowing, only to have it disappoint you -- that's the worst! But I actually like it when you go into a book not expecting much only to end up loving it completely. I did that recently with a book called Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross. A whole bunch of my blogging friends thought it was terrible, but it ended up being my favourite book of the entire year so far! x)
ReplyDelete(Oh, and I just realized that I forgot to rate Grave Mercy on Goodreads! Whoops, I've got to do that soon LOL! It was only around a 3.5 for me too -- a lot because of how hard it was to get into haha!)
This is such a great discussion topic, B! I usually browse reviews like crazy before I buy or request a book because there are so many out there that I can't just read all of them (it also saves my wallet beforehand LOL), but it's a really smart idea to read reviews AFTER you read a book so you don't go into a book with misguided bias. I think I'll have to try that sometime soon! :)
I hope you're having a great Sunday, B! <3 Haha and you can just ignore the length of this comment -- I had to get all of that out! x)
I feel the same way! I've stopped reading reviews of books I know I want to read before I read the book. But sometimes a bad review of a book will make me more likely to read something I wouldn't have read before. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI usually read reviews of books before reading them because I want to know a little of what to expect. The cover blurb doesn't always accurately convey the story. I do skim reviews sometimes and if I know I'm going to be writing a review soon, I won't read blogger-written reviews of the book till I've written my own review.
ReplyDeleteI always try to look for professional reviews in VOYA, Booklist, etc. since it is part of my job to purchase YA books for my library. I honestly get more excited about books that receive high praise in those publications rather than on blogs (unless it is from bloggers whose opinions I trust like yourself and a few others). Even books with starred reviews have disappointed me or not lived up to my expectations though.
I guess I usually prefer to read reviews before I decide to read a book or buy it but I keep in mind that my opinion and the reviewer's opinion may not be the same. Just like Roger Ebert's movie reviews...