Criticism and Reviews

 

Criticism is perspective, and each individual perspective provides its own cache of information to the reader. How much that reader values that information and perspective is variable. The amount of trust that reader has in the institution, or even the commenter within, informs them of how much they will value that perspective. And that can change given the context the reader finds themselves in. No, I don’t fully trust a lot of Amazon reviews, knowing that many bot accounts and algorithms exist to write out reviews for products. The one-star “SUCKS!!!” review doesn’t give me much to go on. But if I’m just looking to buy a new phone charger cable, “it works fine” on the first review I read would be enough for me to click “Buy”. And often times these reviews from the people may be fairly entertaining.

Reviews from an establishment are a bit more polished, coming from the perspective of writers who provide draft after draft of their work to editors before being published. These people might be reviewers as an occupation, and having to view so much media for a job can certainly inform a person’s opinions and criticisms of any given work. An “okay” work to them might feel forgetful than to someone who only engages with a few books per year.

Across the Internet, subcultures have developed around just about any genre and form of work there is. Even if a book doesn’t receive as much attention from an esteemed establishment like the NYT or Kirkus, chances are with a little digging, one could find a thriving community of people rallying around that book or the style thereof. Their perspective might be the most valuable to the reader, despite being the quietest. Their disapproval of a new work by an author they enjoy might be very telling of a style change and what that might mean. Maybe the book is more palatable to mainstream audiences, or maybe the book now has lost the edge that attracted them in the first place.

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