I am on a rant! If you feel the need to stand high on the pulpit and write hateful words like that then YOU make my ears want to bleed. If I could say fuck off and slap this person I would. There is NO place for words like this and reviews that make me ashamed to be on Goodreads. Specifically if you have such strong feelings about a book you need to be medicated! To whine over $2 is simply pathetic!
I have read a few books; maybe I am in the minority, that were blah. I never wrote a bad review. I never used hateful words. I would simply say nothing. How about if your kid was reading in a play and someone said “Your child’s voice makes me want to rip my eardrums out” How would you feel? If your kid reads a speech and I said “I file that in DNF, Icky Icky” seriously this is infantile behavior. Maybe think before you write. The pen is mightier than the sword. Say it forget it write it regret it.
I think if you have time on your hands to write a five paragraph hateful review, then something is wrong with you. When I asked why DNF is just not enough, why are you writing cruel words? This ignorant ass told me I had thin skin. NO what I have is a college degree, authors who I respect that respect me back and a brain. I have better things to do than make a directory for books with a typo.
This was a big fat DNF. I made it to 76% , I threw in the towel and immediately felt better.
It’s spoiler time, folks! By the halfway point, I’d determined the following:
Samantha is a crappy friend to *****:
Samantha is a crappy friend to ****
Samantha is a crappy to ********:
I don’t even want to summarize this one. It’s a DNF with a wish that I hadn’t started it. I’ve seen people compare this to Anna and the French Kiss – that makes my brain start to bleed.
This is another one:
It should be some sort of a crime that this is $2.00 at Amazon. No, it would be horrible even if it were free. I want a refund and to be paid my hourly wage plus damages for pain and suffering.(I need pay to get over you words of hate and probably you should suffer a case of diarrhea)
All of that’s enough to make a pretty bad story because that is the story. There’s no character growth, no plot and no side characters other than a token, stereotypical gay male friend to feed Eva chocolate and ice cream when she’s depressed. There’s no drama other than Jake being a disgusting pig every five pages, then wondering if he may have lost Eva completely when she makes her teary sad face, right before being a pig again. But it got worse. I thought about actually attempting to do a thorough job and providing examples of what I’m about to talk about, but my head exploded when I started taking notes. I can’t do it.
I challenge anyone to find me a single page in this book that doesn’t contain at least ten misspelled words or grammatical errors. I’m not even going to make you count the formatting errors, punctuation mistakes or the gross mishandling of the English language. (You sat there counting with a dictionary? dumbass!) This isn’t an anti-book review, this is a pro-reader, pro-book-buyer review. No one should pay $2 for this. We need to have some standards (Like growing the hell up??)
Here is another classic idiot:
This was a terrible, terrible, trashy book. It should have been titled “Mary Sue and Gary Stu Question Their Sexuality”, because that is what it boiled down to.(You need a stiff something. OK aside from that take a trip to a high school, be careful getting off your high horse old lady. When you get there, do a survey and report back. What were you trolling the Gay Lesbian section of the book store for? Did you forget where you left that nifty sweater with the bears on it? No? Maybe you forgot your AARP magazine)
I saw this on a list of the best GLBTQI YA books, and I don’t know why. Yes, several characters in the book are gay/bi/questioning, but with the way the book ends, it seems to send the message that being queer is just a trendy phase to tide you over until you find your ONE TRUE HETERO LOVE. (Right about now duct tape you and force you to watch countless hours of bad talk shows. Follow that by ten Hail Mary’s and 6 episodes of Maury followed by Steve Wilkos. Yeah U need it)
And don’t get me started on the characters. Mary Sue and Gary Stu respectively- especially , who has a horrible past of abuse, but is: brilliant, beautiful, rich, and talented at everything. Ever. It’s like reading terrible fanfiction.
In fact, most of the characters in the book are either woefully underdeveloped, or bad fanfic-esque paragons of perfectness (with just a little bit of parental angst to make them interesting).
I also found all the partying kind of ridiculous and over the top. This is basically the Hollywood fantasy of what high school kids are like, only in novel format. (wow take a trip to Orange County the land of fame and excess. The kids don’t drive their Mom’s cars they have their own BMW)
In short, I was appalled.
(oh my call SNL and get Church Lady to appear and SHF at you. Now nothing but porn for you and I will duct tape you again. I think 6 hours of that should be enough, but dont take that as gospel, I may add or retract any punishment at any time. It is my discretion. Which clearly do not to forget you need a good kick in your ass Brooklyn style)
Reading Renee 
Some people just have to have something to bitch about. I hate this, and the ones that are constantly downing the book. There was one i seen the other day and complained about the 1st book but read the 2nd and complained again it is just stupid! And now on giveaways people are buying the book and turning right around and selling it back so that they get a chance to win something it is just pathetic! ok RANT over LOL
OMG selling it? Duct tape and 10 episode of Steve Wilkos followed by Maury x 6 That is a serious infraction
My kids are all older but I wish I could go to a school and say that to a Mom to see what she would say. Just for research purposes.
Before I start, I want to say that my experience with reviewers (good ones) is not something I would ever take back. I’ve grown as an author and person. I’ve learned to take their nuggets of constructive criticism and write stories that are every bit as good as those stories released through traditional publishers. For them, I’ll be forever grateful.
The rest of this post is directed toward reviewers who take pleasure in their snarky, petty, and childish reviews. Since I’ve been on the receiving end of a few mean reviews (i.e. Can fee e-ink be wasted? To which I wanted to reply, ‘Absolutely. You just proved it.’ but I didn’t.). I’ve had a chance to reflect and study. Here’s what I’ve learned:
1) These mean-spirited ‘reviewers’ usually have a following of others who are egging them on. For me, that’s comparable to laughing and jeering at someone who obviously needs professional help. I’m including an example of one such review where nearly 200 peopled liked the review and asked for this person to do more. I felt so sorry for this author that I nearly cried: (http://www.amazon.com/Scent-Danger-Autumn-Dawn/dp/1456516256/ref=la_B002BMOSWQ_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364126390&sr=1-2)
2) These people were dissatisfied with the book because it was not one written for them. For example, if you love erotica (all of your 5 star reviews go to erotica) you probably shouldn’t read a young adult book. The one thing I encourage readers to do is to get to know themselves well enough to know from the genre/summary/reviews if they will enjoy the book BEFORE they read it.
3) Finally, there are people who don’t live by the Golden Rule. For me, that is the saddest part of all. I’m convinced these same people would not say these things in public or to the author’s face. Something about the anonymity of the internet and the privacy of their home makes them do things they wouldn’t normally do. (Though I’m confident these reviewers have a seed of this hate-filled person in their heart or they wouldn’t go there in the first place.)
As always, thank you and all of the other wonderful reviewers for your support and for speaking out against such behavior. One person at a time, we can change the world.
Bingo! One reviewer had a bear sweater on and was in her late 50″s reading a YA book about experiencing gay and bi sexual tendencies. Then she slammed the book. I really don’t get how someone can write I want a refund. If I was a bad person I would post these blog names and tell authors to NEVER involve themselves with the likes of people like this.
As always TY for the support and I will try to change this, somehow I think I may the person to do it
Thanks for supporting authors and taking our feelings in to account when you reviews book. Some folks are just plain mean, and doubly so when they can hide behind the anonymity of the Web. I’m trying to fructis on all the really great reviews I have, but it’s hard when you get one or two mean ones to not obsess about them (at least it is for me!).
Thanks for taking a stand and calling these jerks out!
Jackie I wish I could take those undies from your dog and stuff them down someones throat! If you focus on the good you need to see the big picture, the bad review brings your rating so far down that it makes it hard to get back up. That is the part that is not fair. That is the reason I don’t like vampires and would never read a book about them.
I dislike these types of reviews, especially with how rude they can be. If you don’t like a book there are always diplomatic ways of expressing it without being offensive. Constructive criticism is much more helpful, to those who want to read said book and especially to the author.
I’ve been abused on twitter for having an opinion on a particular topic, and people I didn’t even know tweeted me abusing me which I couldn’t believe. The anonymity of the internet is to blame for this stupid behaviour.
So glad you brought this issue up!
The thing that bothers me is that I KNOW something is so wrong when you get that worked up and have the need to compel yourself to type these sorts of reviews. They do it on a forum such as Goodreads and feel no shame. The fact that they have their name listed and it is public is just crazy.