I could go on and on about poorly written reviews. It's not even a matter of someone not being able to write reviews as well as, let's say, some of the members of this group (someday I hope to be able to write reviews as well as some of you!)....BUT to spell out the entire book's plot then follow up with "You HAVE to read this NOW!!!" is just plain ridiculous. Why would I have to read it now? I know everything about the book including what color socks Betsy is wearing.
I know that since Shelfari has members of all reading age groups some of the reviews that I would deem poorly written are unfortunately written by young teens who don't have the experience to know not to disclose the killer's name in a review or that the couple break up and the heroine dates the hero's best friend or that vampires are sparkly (who knew?). Those younger reviewers I can cut some slack but when they've been told not to and explained why and continue to do so makes Hulk angry....well maybe not, but sometimes when I read a spoiler I'm not expecting to be there I do feel like turning green and going on a mass destruction rampage. Young readers and reviewers aside there are plenty adults who do the same thing and I have to wonder if they aren't intentionally malicious in divulging spoilers. I'd like to think of readers as a step above this but honestly you do get a bad peanut in the bag every now and again.
I myself do divulge entire plots or spoilers occasionally but I clearly mark this at the beginning of the review to warn people to continue at their own risk. I like to think of my doing so as a public service both as a spoiler warning but mostly because the book was one I wouldn't encourage anyone to read (I did this for the Cassie Edwards book Shadow Bear I read and reviewed sometime last year).
As far as character descriptions....why add spoilers??? It makes no sense. I read a book fairly recently that one of the characters had a scar that was a pivotal clue in the mystery. It was in the character description which clued me in on who the baddie was right away. It pretty much pissed me off and now that Patrick as introduced me to the necessity of a "Bitch Slap Button" I am mentally hitting that button repeatedly. Anyway, I went back and erased the scar info and added non-spoiler info, like, Jack is Frank's neighbor's son and Paul is Jack's son type stuff.
posted 1 year ago. ( permalink )
