AKA calling out all of us, myself included
So if you read enough book reviews (which you probably do), you might notice that there are different types of book reviewers. I thought it would be funny to talk about these types of reviewers, in a fun, lighthearted way.
Too nice
- Doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings
- Barring blatant, morally wrong messages, will rate even their most-loathed book at least 2 stars
- “I didn’t enjoy the plot, had a hard time getting into it, the writing was just okay, and didn’t like the characters. Three stars.”
- “I had no complaints even though this was fairly mediocre. Five stars.”
Critical and doesn’t care
- Has high expectations, knows it, and isn’t afraid to say when a book doesn’t meet their expectations
- Will drag your faves and will not apologize for it
- Is almost always critical but almost always in a constructive way
- If they love a book, it’s probably good
- “This book was a solid fine. It didn’t blow me away, but there wasn’t anything majorly wrong with it either. Three stars.”
- “I thought the plot was brilliant, but didn’t like the characters and the writing was annoying. One star.”
Easy to please (aka calling out myself)
- Is easily distracted by good writing
- Only notices major issues when they’re pointed out by other reviews
- Every book is rated 4.5 stars though because it didn’t “feel” like a five-star book
- “I thought the plot was boring and the characters were just okay, but I loved the writing. Four and a half stars.”
The friendly reviewer
- Starts every review with “Friends, I loved this book” or “Friends, please don’t hate me, but…”
- Will drag your favourite book if they didn’t like it, but will do it nicely
- Honestly, even when they hate a book, it will be worded in the nicest way possible
- Will still probably rate that book 2 stars
- If they love a book, it’s just 600 words of them gushing non-stop about everything
Doesn’t really have much to say
- Reviews are 300 words, max.
- Probably organizes the post into categories and spends three sentences talking about each category
- Even when they hated or loved a book, the review is generally short
The thorough reviewer
- Reviews are 700 words, minimum
- Organizes the review into categories, but talks about every category extensively
- Reviews read like a book report
Only provides a summary
- Provides the Goodreads summary for a book, AND spends 90% of the review summarizing the plot
- Has two lines, maybe, about their thoughts
- Also likely to be a concise or too nice reviewer
- Also highly likely to be a middle-aged mom (I don’t make the rules)
So those are the types of reviewers I came up with! TAG YOURSELF, I’M EASY TO PLEASE
Are there any other type of reviewers you’ve noticed? Let me know!
Thanks for reading! xx
Ally Writes Things 
What a cute idea! As a reviewer, there’s no way to read this without smiling or even laughing.
I find myself “thinking” critical, like the best thing about that book was getting to the end and closing it! But I probably write “too nice.” A book is an author’s baby. I wouldn’t tell a new Mom to her face that her baby looks ugly. Yeah, I always hate to rate less than two stars.
Thanks again for this wonderful post! I absolutely loved it. And like someone above said, it’s pretty hard not to fit a little bit into each category. 🙂
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Thank you, I’m so glad it was entertaining! 💖
LOL I get that about some books, where I just want to finish it and be done with. And same, I rarely rate books less than two stars, unless it was offensive or had some major issues I couldn’t look past.
Thank you so much! 💖
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I’m the closest to the thorough reviewer but with a pinch of easy to please that is less and less visible the more I read and review, I think? This is such a great post to make us think of all the various ways of reviewing! And what we expect from reviews as well 🙂
Thanks!
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Thank you! 💕💕
Thorough reviews are so good!
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