Tag: one-star reviews

One-Star Reviews of the Hundred Greatest Novels, #50-26

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. Actually, it ends next week, but this week merely continues the countdown of brutal one-star reviews on The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels All Time (by Daniel S. Burt). We groaned our way from 100 to 76, wept bitter years from 75 to 51, now we’re rounding the bend for the home stretch with numbers 50 to 26.

Once again, these are all real one-star reviews from real readers, culled from a popular reading site. I am not saying I agree or disagree with any or all of them, and I am not doing this solely to elicit gasps or chuckles. My only goal is to remind my fellow scribblers that for every single book ever written, there are readers who feel they are absolute drek. Take solace in that whenever you get a less than stellar review yourself, and know that you will. Unless, of course, you think you are oh so much better than every writer on this list, in which case you are delusional and there is just no helping you. Continue reading “One-Star Reviews of the Hundred Greatest Novels, #50-26”

One-star Reviews of the Hundred Greatest Novels: 75-51

Happy Friday the 13th everybody, and in honor of this spooky date…okay, it has nothing to do with the spooky date.

Instead, we now resume our regularly scheduled programming to count down The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time by Daniel S. Burt, accompanied by real one-star reviews from real readers. Last week we went from #100 to 76, so today we’ll take it to halftime.

Just to reiterate, I am not doing this to make fun of the reviewers, and actually there are more than a few reviews here I agree with completely. My only point, cheerfully offered, is to remind us all as authors that reviews (at least in this social media world), are nothing more than one reader’s opinion. And for absolutely any book ever written, someone is going to be of the opinion that it sucks eggs. Continue reading “One-star Reviews of the Hundred Greatest Novels: 75-51”

One-star Reviews of the Hundred Greatest Novels: 100-76

In my ongoing attempt to come up with something to say here every Friday, I am returning to a tried-and-true formula with which I believe I can squeeze out one solid month of columns. Yay, me. 😉

The formula is of course: One star reviews of classic literature. To that end, I will be working off the list found in The Novel 100: A Ranking of Greatest Novels All Time (2004), written by Daniel S. Burt. Continue reading “One-star Reviews of the Hundred Greatest Novels: 100-76”

Ed’s Casual Friday: Everyone is a (one) Star.

Bad ReviewAs I’m sure many of my fellow writers have noticed at the various and sundry virtual watering holes around which we are wont to gather, one of the more common posts (right after “Buy my book!”) goes something like “I just got an awful review!” usually expressed with varying degrees of “How could this have possibly happened?”

How could it not have happened? My advice on such occasions is always to pick one of your favorite books of all time, something you think of as an absolute, perfect gem. Then go to any review site and page through the one-star reviews, of which there will likely be hundreds. Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday: Everyone is a (one) Star.”