I, like many other book reviewers, have been harassed and attacked by an author. The popular book-centered social media platform GoodReads allows anyone who loves reading to leave a review, and the relationship between authors and their reviewers has become more perilous. This relationship should be one of mutual respect, but authors are responding to their reviewers with animosity, anger, and unprofessional behavior.
Last year, I read an advanced reader’s copy of a book provided by NetGalley and I left a negative review. With a formal background in literary studies, my reviews are well-written and focus solely on the text. I have an average rating of 3.0 stars: I am not afraid to say what is inherently wrong with a novel, but I am still in the middle ground. When I woke up the next morning, I had six comments on my review attacking me, personally. They were all from accounts that only had one review: a five-star review of the same novel; the accounts were all following each other and appeared fake. When I deleted these hateful comments and blocked the account, a new one would spring up out of nowhere. It was so bad, that I contacted NetGalley and informed them of the situation with proof. Finally, the abusive comments ceased.
I am not the only one. Many reviewers have been harassed for leaving negative reviews, some are even harassed to change their three stars to four. GoodReads users have reported instances of belittling, name-calling, and even doxing. Doxing is when someone reveals your full legal name, photos, place of employment, or other personal information.
Some authors believe that you should not rate a book if your review is not positive, but as readers and reviewers, we are entitled to our opinions. As an author, you must be able to take criticism, especially criticism online. In no instance is it appropriate for an author to attack their reviewers — it is completely inappropriate and promotes censorship. It is unethical.
There are instances of review bombing, where GoodReads users, bot accounts, or other authors will intentionally leave inauthentic one-star reviews to impact sales. For example, Cait Corrain’s debut novel was dropped by the publisher after it was revealed that she was leaving negative reviews on her fellow authors’ novels that were not even published yet. However, most low ratings with well-written reviews are completely genuine.
Reviewers should never feel pressured to leave reviews that aren’t honest or delete negative reviews; we all have different tastes when it comes to literature, and we should not be punished for politely writing negative reviews. There are many, many best-sellers, including classics, that get torn to shreds on GoodReads, but it seems some lesser-known, self-published authors have not learned how to handle criticism respectfully. Can you imagine if you left a one-star review for an Apple product on Amazon and Tim Cook took it upon himself to insult you on and off the platform?
