SageI never trust averaged star ratings. There is an XKCD Comic that tells the reason for that better than I could do: xkcd: TornadoGuard
To be useful a review has to give some reasons for it's conclusion. "That's a bad book" is just as useless as "Bestestest book evarrr!!!11". They tell me nothing about the book and if I would like it. Same for "bad writing". A term as this is just to subjective to have any substance on it's own.
A good critique helps me to build my own opinion. If he says what is right or wrong about the book I get the chance to disagree with him, to tell he criticizes something I actually like in a book. Or the other way round.
Much more useful than a simple "Three stars out of five".
To be useful a review has to give some reasons for it's conclusion. "That's a bad book" is just as useless as "Bestestest book evarrr!!!11". They tell me nothing about the book and if I would like it. Same for "bad writing". A term as this is just to subjective to have any substance on it's own.
A good critique helps me to build my own opinion. If he says what is right or wrong about the book I get the chance to disagree with him, to tell he criticizes something I actually like in a book. Or the other way round.
Much more useful than a simple "Three stars out of five".
