Can the average reviewer review a friends book and keep her objectivity?
No, I don’t think a reviewer should review a friend’s book. The relationship is bound to interfere with her response to the book. Amazon and many other online retailers and review sites rate their books. Do you think this is a good thing? Is rating books fair? What should people keep in mind when looking at these ratings? I find the rating system too crude to be useful. Reading a review, we learn not only about the book but also about the reviewer’s viewpoint and can judge for ourselves whether we want to read it. A rating accompanied by a few comments tells the reader almost nothing. Especially since reviewers apply these rating so differently. One reviewer will praise a book, with no criticism, and give it 3 stars, while another will call a book poor and also give it 3 stars. How do we interpret this? The visual impact of these stars is hard to ignore, but I think readers should be cautious in using them. Do you think a review written by a reader has less value than one written by a
