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06 April, 2019

Why Book Reviews are important?

When I started my blog featuring book reviews, I didn't think much about the importance of book reviews. I just felt this is a platform to express my opinion on the books that I read. 

But, As an avid book reader, I give more importance to book reviews. 

Why? Because they make my job easy to decide on which book I have to pick next.

Yes, Book Reviewers are real influencers of book readers.


If I think deep about this topic, I see a lot of advantages of book reviews. As a book review blogger, I would love to share my opinion on the importance of book reviews in this post. 

Why do we need Book Reviews?

1. Help us pick the book of our interest

Many readers see the book cover and read the blurb to decide whether to pick that book as their next read or not.

 But, this generation readers are relying highly on book reviews. A good book review mentions - what the book is about, who might enjoy the book, what the author is trying to express and other important details like whether the narration is smooth, if it is fast/ slow paced etc., 

So, if you think about the above information provided by reviewers, it is definitely more than a blurb and helps us take a decision on choosing the right book.

2. To know ahead if the book might interest us or not

Everyone says, don't judge the book by the cover. Every person has different interests and thus a few books might be wonderful for us and a few might not. So, if we have to know ahead if the core concept of the book or the subject interests us, we can rely on book reviews. 

I don't like Non-fiction. They don't interest me. But, I have picked 'Blue Ocean Strategy' due to a friend's suggestion and review and I found it very helpful and interesting. A detailed review from my friend helped me to choose a book which I might not have selected in a library reading the blurb.

Amazon

3. Miscellaneous Details about the book:

Sometimes, I read book reviews to know some miscellaneous details about the book which are not related to the genre/ plot. The plot might sound interesting, but a few books are very slow paced, a few books use complex vocabulary and are difficult to understand, a few books have a lot of spelling/ grammar mistakes, a few have a bad narration / unreal characterization, etc., 

These details cannot be found in any book blurb. There are some great book reviewers that I know who pour their heart out in their reviews. There are bold enough to express their real opinion without using sugar coated words. I respect them and follow them on their blogs/ social media. Some of them are :

Shantala from Shanaya Tales
Namrata from Privytrifles
Mayuri from Sirimiri
Anuradha from Anu Reviews




4. To get an unbiased opinion :

Do you trust the average rankings in Amazon? Sometimes, I cannot trust them blindly. The average rating might be 4/5, but that book might not be the best for me. How do I know the unbiased opinion? How do I know if the average is because of 50 fake reviews/ 5 fake reviews? I find out by reading some reviews which are written in detail. 

A rating is a simple number but complex to understand as every reviewer ranks depending on the criteria that is important for them, which might not be a priority for other readers. There is a problem of fake reviews too, these days. So, A detailed book review is always better than an average rating shown in Amazon/ Good Reads while deciding on a book.

If you are a book reviewer, do you agree with the above points? Did I miss any other advantage of book reviews? Do let me know in the comments. If you are a book reader, do let me know if you also look for book reviews for the above reasons.

Here is my Good reads profile, in case you want to follow my reviews:
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7275727-mahathi-ramya

Until next time,








This post is written for Blogchatter's Book Review Program. Did you join this program, if you are a reviewer or a book reader?

2 comments:

  1. I agree. Book Reviews are very important. Especially the unbiased ones that highlight pros and cons. They help me gauge if the book is a good fit for me.

    Especially because sometimes the cover and the blurb can be misleading.

    Oh and thank you so much for the shootout. It means a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Literature should be spread by reviews. It's very necessary that people come in contact with good reviews so that they start falling in love with reading.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for dropping by! please share your opinion :)