I’m tired of running into book reviews that go something along the lines of “This isn’t my normal genre but I picked it up because x….3 stars.”

These reviews are numerous and, in my opinion, unhelpful for other users and insensitive towards authors. They treat the review system as if it’s somehow calibrating a personal taste metric instead of contributing to a universal judgement of quality.

I would love to see a book review community/software that is more thoughtful about structuring ratings relative to certain genre/taste profiles.

  • hyacinthus@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    19 days ago

    I love this perspective. It’s true that it would be useful to know, for example, how much horror fans enjoy a horror novel vs. people who “don’t usually read this.”

    At the same time, I can see how those reviews are useful for people who are looking to branch out from their usual genre, and tastes are not static across genres (or subgenres within those genres). A good reminder of how important it is to actually read individual reviews, as one reader’s two-star may arise from the exact same evaluation as another’s three or one-star review (or even wider margins of personal preference for what ratings represent!).