A few days ago a Tweet showed up in my Twitter feed.  One that I didn’t respond to, frankly because it infuriated me so much that I was afraid that the anger would come through before the logic did.

In short, basically this person states that they cannot trust a reviewer’s opinion when that reviewer gives a lot of 5 star ratings because they aren’t being honest about the flaws that every book out there has to one degree or another.

I was surprised, at the time, how many other reviewers/bloggers agreed with that statement.  Then the next day, and the day after I began to see others disagree… and that gave me the push to write this post.  It matters not little bit to me if anyone sees this post or agrees with me – it matters that I vent/rant and get this anger out of my system, because it’s not a good feeling at all.

I read what I love, what interests me, and me alone.  I do not buy, borrow or request e-ARCs of books that I’m not 90% certain that I’m going to enjoy.

At my age, quite frankly, I don’t have the time nor the interest to read the hottest best seller because everyone else is when it’s not a genre I love.  So my book choices, my book reviews, both of my book review blogs have mostly 3 – 3.5 – 4 – 4.5 – 5 star reviews ranging from a good book that I enjoyed to freaking amazing.  I have very few 1 or 2 star reviews because, again frankly, I DNF them without comment because of that time thing, I know I should but unless it’s an e-ARC I simply move on to the next book.  I do round up the .5s to the next full number on vendor sites/Goodreads.

There are no perfect books.  Let’s say that again – a perfect book without some flaw does not exist.  What that flaw is depends completely on each individual reader.  Yes, there are missed typos, and perhaps the wrong character’s name used that wasn’t caught.  It happens.  Any e-ARC I’m reading, well, I’m assuming any flaws will be found and corrected by that publishing house’s team.  In independently published books, well again, finding those mistakes are up to the author or their editing team.

Frankly, whether an author uses the correct coma throughout, if they miss where a coma should have been… Does Not Matter To Me.  What matters are those times when some action, something missed, some obvious mistake takes me out of the book and back into the real world.  That gets mentioned in a review.

I care about the story.  The world I’ve been invited into for a brief, shining moment.  That is where my enjoyment of any book gets it’s base.  And that experience has “good” – “very good” – “amazing” – and – “freaking awesome” ratings… and I will not apologize for my own rating system.

I angers me that someone has the goll to state with superiority that they would not trust someone who enjoys books enough to give out 5 star reviews about them.  Why?  Are people not allowed to be blown away by an author’s world to the point where they say “That was an awesome experience.”?

My blogs are for my enjoyment, my chance to share stories that I’ve enjoyed with others.  It’s not a huge, successful blog (I doubt it ever will be).  But it’s my blog, my reviews… and if I want to give every single book I read FIVE FREAKIN’ STARS – that’s my choice.  And another reviewer/blogger’s opinion is not going to change that.  Again, I’m old enough to no longer care about being a ‘popular’ reviewer – I do care about sharing my love of books, and I will continue to do that – My Way – until I can no longer read or until I’m in the ground and beyond reading that last book in a beloved series.

End of rant.