(upbeat music)
- Yeah.
Bad book reviews.
We're gonna talk about them today.
But instead of us going over to Amazon,
that's too predictable.
We're gonna go by a viewer request,
over to the great wild unknown, of Goodreads.
Oh, you don't know what Goodreads are,
you don't know what the bad book
reviews are like over there,
you're gonna wanna make sure you stay tuned
to today's video.
(calm music)
Hey, I'm Dale L. Roberts, best selling author,
as well as a self-publishing advocate
who wants to show you how to publish books that sell.
And if you want that too, click the subscribe button,
ring the bell notification icon,
and switch it to all so that way
you don't miss a single one of these videos.
If you've been in this business
of publishing books or writing them long enough,
you know that eventually it's going to happen.
Someone's gonna give you a bad book review
and I've talked about it in a couple of other videos.
And I've covered it over in Amazon
how it's kind of just a crazy, just system.
You know there's just a wild dumpster fire
and someone said,
"Hey have you ever looked into Goodreads,
"because they've got some really crazy reviews over there."
And it got me thinkin', I was like,
you know why don't we check that out?
So I got a hold, I called up my ever faithful
assistant Ava Fails and I said,
"Ava, I need you to see about going into
"Goodreads and find me the best of the worst.
"I wanna see some that just leave you just laughing,
"or just cringing.
And boy, she did not disappoint.
In fact I've only just shown you half of this list,
maybe we'll show some later if you wanna see them
let me know in the comments.
So here's the deal, Goodreads is kind of
like a social media platform for book lovers.
So those people that really enjoying reading books,
this is kind of where they connect.
It's like their forum I hear,
and fun fact, Amazon owns Goodreads.
(chuckling)
Right?
Pretty crazy.
And to a certain extent, there is some integration
between Amazon and Goodreads.
In fact, if you've got a Kindle device,
you can get it to where it's synced up to Goodreads.
So when you're reading it,
it will let your profile know where
you're at in a given book.
So it'll say certain percentages,
I'm gonna show some of that here
as we go through these reviews.
More recently, something to think about
is Amazon is startin' to adopt a new system.
Not only are they startin' to bring in
global reviews into one product page,
they're now startin' to allow the readers
to just leave a star review with zero justification.
This is very much like what Goodreads is like.
So someone can go in, read a book or not read a book,
over on Goodreads and just leave a rating
and they don't have to say a single thing.
They don't have to justify,
if they wanna put a one star they're gonna put a one star,
if they wanna put a five star, they can do it.
They don't need to tell anybody anything.
And that's why it's the great unknown
going into Goodreads because there's a lot of people
that can go in there and post whatever they like.
This begs the question, since there is relationship
between Amazon and Goodreads,
will we ever see a full migration
of the Goodreads reviews over to the Amazon platform?
Mm, who knows.
We're not gonna talk about that
in today's video because I wanna share
with you nine sizzling reviews
that are just gonna leave you laughing a little bit,
cringing a bit, and of course just loosening up
because if you've ever gotten a bad book review,
understand that you're not in it alone.
So, what's the deal with bad book reviews?
Huh man, everyone gets them, context is everything.
Understand this, that you could put out this book
and just put all your hard earned time,
money, energy, and attention into it,
and it gets put out there and someone just lays into it.
Just remember, that the person who's posting that review--
(sighs)
Who knows what they're going through life?
So rather than us worrying about what context it is,
let's just go ahead and label some of these people,
it's just upset, angry trolls.
So let's start on that with "The Hunger Games"
by Suzanne Collins.
And this one actually was reviewed by Barry Pierce.
He got about 64 likes on the platform for this.
"I am now stupider for reading this."
I kinda had to look this up really quick,
I was like okay is it more stupid, or stupider?
And according to Grammarly they say stupider
is definitely something that is usable.
But I dunno, you guys go ahead
and weigh in on the comments down below.
So what you will see inside this particular review
is he actually went through and read this,
'cause there's actually reading progress
and it says that it is complete.
So this dude went through and read the whole book,
and said he was stupider.
My thought is if you're getting probably two
or three chapters deep and you're feelin' stupid,
dude, put the book down.
You don't have to read it, it's not like it's required,
and you know you went and bought the book,
oh I'm gonna have to read it all the way through.
It's like a bad movie, if you don't like the movie
just get up and walk out of the theater
for crying out loud, no one's gonna think any less of you.
I think less of you in the fact that you sat
through and read the entire book,
and feel that you're stupider.
Well of course you're stupid,
you sat through the whole stinkin' book
and didn't like it and felt
like you were getting dumber by the moment.
"The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown.
This review is by Ruth Bavetta,
now I actually kinda had go into her profile,
yeah I was lookin' at you Ruth.
With this particular review she got about 142 likes,
so there's some people standing behind Ruth on this one.
It's pretty funny to know, sometimes you will see
where the readers on Goodreads will shelve
a book in some certain area.
And they can make their own shelves,
so Ruth decided to go ahead and shelve this
into "total crap", she did finish reading it by the way.
So it says inside her timeline she finished reading it.
"Impossibly complicated plot.
"Really, really, really bad writing.
"This book was forced upon me.
"I should have known better."
Okay, are we now in the day and age
that terrorists go and put a gun to your head,
and force you to read a given book?
Ruth, come on now.
Use some more sense, you definitely seem
like an intelligent woman,
what exactly was being forced on you?
If it was some type of friend or family,
make 'em stand in the corner, okay?
You don't need to punish this specific author
because you just didn't like it.
Again.
(sighs)
Like seriously, do like what Barry should've done.
Walk away from the book, you don't have to read
the entire thing, there's no medal for you completing it,
in fact your only medal
is the fact you're being shown on this video
and people get to laugh at your expense.
So remember how I was saying something about context,
well context is super important,
because I did a little bit of digging here on Ruth.
And you actually you'll see she started and finished
reading this book on January of 2006.
She shelved it in September of 2007,
then she came back, shelved it as "total crap"
in April 2007, and Ruth went out of her way
to shelve a book that she'd finished a long time ago.
So I went ahead and I clicked on her profile,
I went ahead and visited,
and Ruth seems like a spectacular woman.
She actually is a poet and artist,
and she's actually published author.
And here's something funny to note,
now don't go look at my Goodreads
because my ratings are pretty poor itself,
but you'll see her average rating's about 3.39.
Not great.
It's about a little bit above average if I were to say so.
And this is out of about 1897 ratings,
as well as 503 reviews.
Bitter much Ruth?
I don't think you should exact your revenge
on other authors by giving a bunch of low reviews.
If you don't like a book, I doubt it was forced on you,
put it off the side, call it a day,
read something worth your time.
"Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer.
This review is by simply, Joe.
And actually if you go to his profile it is "iamjoeprince",
ah la-di-da we've got a prince here in the house.
Well this prince actually was able
to get about 7181 likes, Joe is on fire on Goodreads.
I mean, literally on fire,
people are lovin' what he's putting out.
In fact actually, he put the book
into just some regular categories and shelves,
but then he recommended it for
"Idiots and people who enjoy bad dialogue."
"Save your time, here's the entirety
"of Twilight in 20 dialogue snippets
"and a wiggedy-wack intermission.
"First 200 pages, I like you Edward.
"You shouldn't I'm dangerous.
"I like you Edward.
"But I'm dangerous.
"Next 50 pages, I'm a vampire.
"I like you Edward.
"But I'm a vampire, I'm dangerous.
"I like you Edward.
"Next 100 pages, I like you Edward.
"You smell good Bella, I'm dangerous.
"I like you Edward.
"Damn, you smell good.
"I like you Edward.
"Also, I glow in sunlight.
"Next 50 pages, a vampire baseball game.
"I wish I was kidding.
"Last 100 pages, help me Edward I'm being chased.
"I'll save you.
"Help me Edward, I'm scared.
"I'll save you.
"Oh, Edward.
"You smell good.
"One half start for lack of quality,
"and one half star for being unintentionally hilarious,
"especially page 314."
Wow is that super specific.
There were 896 comments, so it's not surprising
that he had so many likes because there was a ton
of engagement, and much like any other
social media platform, the more engagement that you get,
the more it attracts a crowd.
That Goodreads is gonna send more people to,
there's this oh there's something relevant
about this particular book here.
So, it reads this.
So Joe actually started and finished reading
on January of 2008.
He shelved it on November of 2008.
He came back November six, 2017 to shelve it again.
Joe, are you thirsty for attention very much?
"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.
This review is by Heather, three likes.
"I read this first when I was 11.
"Since then, for over 20 years
"I cringe when people use my name in conversation
"and feel suspicious of their motives."
Ah Heather, Heather what can I tell you?
I mean listen, Heather I can't blame you.
I mean gosh, I mean what's a Heather to do?
I mean, Heather what do you think?
All joking aside though, romance blossoms
as you scroll down into the comments
you will see Barry and Heather hit it off
because they share some of their social awkwardness
with each other and it kind of you know,
it warms the heart.
It's good to know that someone can probably leave
a one star trolling review and find romance in the process.
It's gonna be the next hit rom com.
Just a little bit of advice for you Heather,
kill the exclamation point, I don't think it's necessary
for you to scream your name at people.
Especially in reviews.
"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel.
This review is by Jeanette and has roughly 13 likes.
It wasn't quite as good as the last one we did
but it does have a little bit of juiciness to it.
It was shelved under, "started it hated it",
so we're off to a good start
and we know this is going to be brutal.
"If I had wanted to read boring comparisons
"of animals in the wild versus animals in a zoo,
"I'd have picked up a zoology book, not a novel.
"This goes way up high on the list
"of stee-oo-pidest books I have ever tried to enjoy."
Kinda like our last reviewer, Jeanette actually has
a little bit of a reviewer friendship
blossom down inside the comments.
And it's snarkiness for snarkniess,
they're like oh I like to be snarky, oh me too,
oh here we go, good for you two get a room.
"Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White.
This review is by Alex, just simply Alex.
And it got one like.
Alex we see you, you're not supposed to like
your own stinkin' reviews dude, come on man.
"Book was trash.
"They didn't even make bacon or pork chops
"or anything like that.
"Crafted by a whole mess of vegans, simply deplorable."
Oh and you decided you're gonna yeah,
it was a funny joke, I get it, I get it.
You actually scroll down to the comments
and some people say, "A little harsh, don't you think?"
Alex responds with, "That begs the question
"that a wise woman once asked me,
"'Read that book and tell me it was good.'"
"That's not a question.
"Also I have read the book,
"in fact I very much enjoyed it as a child.
"I think you need to consider being a bit more open minded."
"I'm sorry, you're right.
"The truth is that I suffer
"from a rare fear called arachnophobia.
"The book made me intensely uncomfortable
"and what usually calms me down is eating some tender meat.
"Seeing that there was none in this book
"furthered my discomfort."
We got a comedian in every crowd.
Just, ugh, yeah.
Again as I mentioned before context is everything,
so sometimes if you just go and click
on this reviewers profile you'll be able to see
exactly what we're dealing with.
And I gotta tell you that Alex's selfie game is on point,
yeah, there we go, we go to click on this
and he's got his hoodie pulled over his face,
and looks like he's wearing some headphones,
and he's in his dirty bathroom taking a picture here.
Ah, what a class act this Alex is.
Here's the scary part,
he's actually done 14 reviews all with a history
of being a complete and utter dick.
And that segues perfectly into our next book,
"Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss.
This is an oldie but goodie,
man I actually learned how to read on this specific book.
Love the book to this day.
But Calex doesn't agree with me on this one,
and it actually got one like.
I'm wondering if Alex and Calex are the same thing.
And again, Calex, Alex, don't like your own thing,
it just looks kinda sad, just leave it without the likes.
"No vegan option."
(fake laughing)
No vegan, no vegan option.
Maybe Calex doesn't know Alex,
because Calex is clearly a vegan
and Alex is definitely meat eater.
Oh yeah.
(sighs)
"Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak.
Reviewed by Voldemort, yeah that Voldemort.
And see, I'm not even a Harry Potter fan
and I know that's what it's being referenced to.
This actually has one like, again, good lord.
Just don't like your own review all right,
just it looks sad.
All right, so with Voldemort, said,
"Should be zero, zero!
"What this book taught me:
"Being a (beep) is always fun, you learn to order
"around other freaks and at the same time
"your lovely mother will be so proud
"she'll cook a warm supper as reward.
"What was the author thinking?"
Okay, so we scroll on down we'll see exactly
the reading pattern for this person,
it was read originally January 2013,
shelved in "children's literature" in November 2013.
He was a jack (beep) and came back to shelve it
about a year later in September 2014 in
"if bought dump in toilet quickly" and "for children".
Because there's nothing like putting
into a category "for children" and,
"if bought throw into a toilet".
Yeah, makes sense.
(clicks tongue)
I've got one more doozy of a bad book review.
If you're enjoying some of this stuff
let me know inside the comments
and of course, smash that like, turn it blue,
hit it an odd number of times if you want to.
It's kinda like a game it's fun.
See if you can hit it about five times
so it turns blue, it's fun.
The shade starts to go a little darker after a while.
So I've taken it pretty easy on you.
I've given you some really short ones,
but believe it or not, there are some people
on this platform of Goodreads
that really like to write, a lot.
And this next one's no exception,
it's actually "Fifty Shades of Grey" by EL James.
The review is by Katrina Passick Lumsden.
There is no like feature on this one,
and it might have something to do with the length,
or it could have something to do with the fact
that she is actually considered,
I think the number 56 Goodreads reviewer.
Yeah that's right, she's among the top 100 reviewers
on this platform and she has this long post.
And it's long.
What in the hell just happened?
Did I really read that?
Oh my god and she's insecure to the point
of it being laughable, klutzy even though
she only trips twice in the entire book.
(talking over himself)
And there hasn't been a woman this naive
since roundabout 1954.
She flushes constantly and on several occasions
referred to her hoo hoo naughty place as down there.
Christian Grey, Christian is a misogynist,
self loathing, abusive piece of (beep).
Apparently his only redeeming quality,
suspicions were confirmed a few pages later
when Ana admits that any sympathy she feels
for her significant--
Only thing that made the first 4%
of this book tolerable was the fact
that I read it aloud to my younger brother--
(talking over himself)
From the beginning, any time an author
tries to sell me on the characters charm.
(record scratching)
(playing pitch pipe)
Shut up.
And this goes on, and this goes on,
and this goes on to where she actually goes
and writes down the number of word count
of all the oh mys, the craps,
the jeezes, the holy whatever it might be,
the whoas, the gasp, the gasps, the sharp intake of breath,
the murmurs, the murmur, all this stuff.
This woman took the time to painstakingly go through,
fall on the sword for you so you could find out
all of this for yourself.
Katrina's profile has 3866 ratings,
averaging 2.96 stars and she's left 1748 reviews.
Her average stars is below three.
Katrina, you're not fooling anybody.
You seem to be a very jaded and hateful person
that wants to spend your time trolling about
on someone's publication when you could probably
just go ahead and write it yourself.
Because clearly you just wrote an entire book
when it shoulda just been just a short review.
This book's terrible,
says too many things that I don't like.
End of story, instead you probably spend hours
finding all the right GIF's, counting every single
last one of the things that you considered
infractions within EL James publication.
Shut up.
If you actually zoom in on her profile
here's our context because she even says
in her very wordy bio, that she's
"Political left-leaner, feminist,
"and all-around uppity (beep).
"I would probably have a PhD in sarcasm
"were such a thing to exist."
What?
You're sarcastic?
I didn't get that.
That's gonna wrap it up for about
all these Goodreads reviews.
You know, actually I've done some bad book reviews before,
and you know just take it easy on yourself
if someone like this Katrina goes and trolls you.
Hey look, at least they're paying attention to you
and they got your book, you got their money.
And you find out some more reviews,
down in this very next video here
where it's running a little bit more rampant
over on Amazon.
I'll see you in this very next video
where we're gonna go ahead and share a few laughs.
'Til later, I'll see ya then.