Week 5 Prompt

I have posted two more documents in the week five files. One is two reviews of an ebook only romantic suspense novel, one from a blog and one from amazon. Look over the reviews - do you feel they are both reliable? How likely would you be to buy this book for your library?

I feel that these reviews are reliable for this ebook only romantic suspense novel. Ebook only reviews are a little more difficult to judge because of the lack of physical presence of a book. Sometimes, the medium in which a book is read can transform the review of the book. The blog review is a little more personal, because it is for a blog. Amazon reviews can be a little iffy because you aren’t sure who is exactly reviewing and if they are a reliable person or not. However, all opinions and reviews hold some mirth. I would likely buy this book for my library, but it would really be determined on the library's ebook sourcing and if our ebook catalog was consistently stocked. 

The other document contains some reviews of Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt, an incredibly popular memoir. These reviews are all from professional publications, feel free to find more on your own. I just nabbed a few from the Book Review Digest database for you. How do these reviews make you feel about the possibility of adding Angela's Ashes to your collection?

 

Angela’s Ashes is a controversial memoir by Frank McCourt. I personally do not think I could add Angela’s Ashes to my collection. My primary focus is child services and YA novels, and this is not typically targeted towards that demographic. The controversy behind the memoir can also cause some disarray with the general public. Although I am a firm believer in supporting and reading banned books or books that cause a stir and conversation, so that would likely sway my position of adding this one to my collection. 

Do you think it's fair that one type of book is reviewed to death and other types of books get little to no coverage? How does this affect a library's collection?  And how do you feel about review sources that won't print negative content? Do you think that's appropriate? If you buy for your library, how often do you use reviews to make your decisions? If not, how do you feel about reviews for personal reading, and what are some of your favorite review sources?

 

I think the amount and kind of reviews that a book gets is determined really by marketing and social media popularity. Fair? I am not sure, but it definitely is contingent on the societal presence of the book. I also think the genre of a book, these days, can determine how many reviews it gets. This can affect the library’s collection because most libraries are obviously going to order and purchase books that are popular or “in demand” so the books with fewer reviews or popularity are less likely to be in library collections. I think that review sources that don’t provide negative content are almost always lying in a way or purposely persuading the readers in a certain way to read a book despite the people who maybe didn’t like it as much. I think negative reviews are just as important as positive ones. Reviews don’t play too much of a role in what is purchased for my library, but popularity of content is. I utilize Goodreads and amazon a lot for my personal reading reviews.