If you follow this blog regularly, which I recently found out there are some of you that actually follow the blog through blogger (which totally made my day and you guys are awesome!), then you may remember my challenge review of the graphic novel Batman. Well, I post all of my reviews on Amazon (when I remember, I do have some that I need to get transferred over still from when I didn't have internet for months), and apparently comic book fanboys don't like it when people who don't usually read comic books review them on Amazon. The thing is, I had an additional reason for posting this review on Amazon, and it's that I won the book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program, and part of the reason for that program is to get reviews of books on Amazon and Goodreads. It's not a requirement, because they can't realistically require it, but it's the right thing to do.
I honestly don't object to people down voting this review. Sure, it's going to hurt my ranking a little, but not much. I honestly don't feel that what I have to say would be helpful to a comic book fanboy (or girl) in their decision to purchase this book. And I think I made it very clear in my review that I don't have experience with the genre. Because I made it clear that I'm not familiar with the genre, I don't think that my review is going to damage the books reputation, and the only people it might prevent from purchasing the book are others like me that do not typically read graphic novels (and I really doubt someone looking to start is going to be looking at Volume 5.) So why do these fanboys feel the need to attack my review?
This person has two reviews posted on Amazon, neither of them are for a graphic novel of any sort, not even this one. Maybe that indicates that he doesn't feel qualified to write reviews to begin with, or maybe he's just better at trying to tear other people's opinions down than he is at writing opinions of his own. I don't really know.
Now this guy feels that attacking the types of books I typically read is the best course of action...and yet only 3 of my last 20 reviews on Amazon are for "sex novels," and one of those only got 2 stars because it was just not good. Yes, I do have trouble following text boxes in comic books. I'm accustomed to a left to right, top to bottom formula for reading, and comic books don't always follow that formula. Beyond that, they don't even follow the same formula throughout the book. This book in particular had one part where the dialogue crossed over to the righthand page at the top before coming back to the lefthand page to continue, and for someone that doesn't read a lot of comic books, that is confusing. Or maybe it's just me, but I was honest about it being an issue for me.
One thing this graphic novel didn't require though, was a lot of critical thinking, because almost everything you read in a graphic novel is dialogue. You don't even have to turn words into pictures in your head, because the pictures are right in front of you. I am so glad that someone who reads picture books is criticizing my critical thinking skills. Additional note, he only has 5 reviews posted on Amazon, none of them for a graphic novel, not even this one.
It should be noted that I could find no evidence on Facebook of the author sharing this review, so it's possible that these comments are coming from people that are browsing Amazon, and not necessarily street team members that feel the need to defend their authors honor (which for you street team members out there, that is a horrible thing to do. It does turn people off of your favorite author's books.)
What I want to know, is why do people feel it's okay to attack someone on Amazon simply for sharing their opinion of a product? What makes it okay to publicly degrade their choice of reading material? And if you have nothing constructive to contribute about a product yourself, why try to tear down the contributions of others? Do you think that attacking me for my review will get me to take it down? (If that's the case, these people clearly don't know how stubborn I can be.)
At this point I'm tempted to change my rating to the 1 star that the book really earned from me. If I'm going to be attacked for my opinion anyway, it might as well be for a review and rating that actually affects the books rating, right? But that would be petty, about as petty as this blog post (yes, I realize this blog post is petty).
If you read this, please do not go engage on the review on Amazon, because the last thing I want is my fans to act as poorly as these guys have acted. I just really needed to get this off my chest. And I really do enjoy the sounds my fingers make tapping on the keyboard. - Katie
Ha! Don't sweat it. Comic nerds are very opinionated bunch. It goes with the territory. I highly doubt the author shared the review and those guys are just trolling. They get their kicks out of it.
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