20. Booktok Review Drama

***SPOILER ALERTS - This episode has no spoilers. There has been quite the drama this week on Booktok after an author declared, in her opinion, that those who review books at 3 stars are a**holes and, well.... we of course want to discuss it. We thought it raised some really interesting things to consider about about the impact that poor reviews have on author’s sales and income as well as their mental wellbeing. Are reviews for readers or authors? Do we even read reviews and have them influence our reading choices? Is it just a space for hurt people to dump their vitriol? In our opinion reviews are so subjective that we feel uncomfortable even sharing them online and we do not star rate on our platforms for that reason. After looking at this from many angles we have returned to the question of ‘who do reviews/ratings even help?” Should we keep our reviews for our discussions with friends or in our bookclubs? We also share some hilarious 1 star reviews we found on Goodreads for a giggle. What we are reading right now. Carlie - Tandem reading Tower of Dawn & Empire of Storms - Sarah J Maas  Happy Place- Emily Henry Majella - House of Flame and Shadow - Sarah J Mass LINKS ⁠⁠⁠Watch the video episode on YouTube⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Follow and interact with us on Instagram⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Follow and interact with us on TikTok⁠⁠⁠ We do other things than read fantasy romance novels (surprise!) so check out our other content if you so wish..... ⁠⁠⁠See what else Carlie is up to.⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠See what else is Majella is up to.⁠⁠⁠ Music Credit: Intro and Outro music by⁠ ⁠Hot_Dope⁠⁠ from⁠ ⁠Pixabay⁠⁠: Winning Elevation