[ruricolist]

It's true there's often a tenuous relationship between blurbs and books, but setting up reviews as the more reliable alternative to blurbs is untenable. Most reviews I read, especially in literary publications, have little to do with the book nominally under review. Mostly the book is there to provide the occasion for an essay, and the only part of the book that actually makes an appearance is the title.

[TheRealPomax]

This feels like you've never used goodreads, which demonstrates that short form reviews aren't merely tenable, but actually useful and about the contents of book?

[MrJohz]

Eh, I find Goodreads reviews really difficult to get a handle on. Moreso than, say, Rotten Tomatoes, where even if the aggregate rating is different to the rating that I'd give a film, the reviews are at least useful enough that I know what I'm going to get. With Goodreads, it's much more difficult to get a feel for what a book is going to be like based on the reviews.

I wonder if this is because the literary world is a lot not heterogenous. Making a film is very expensive, so only a (relatively) small number get made each year, and they tend to fit into specific categories. If you know what sorts of films you like, it's easier to find more films that match what you want. Books, in comparison, have far more niches, and those niches often seem shallower, so that a single book often fits in multiple spaces for different reasons. I think this makes it harder to know exactly what sort of things work well for you in a book, which makes reviews harder to compare, because other people will often be reading a book very differently to you.

I think this is similar to board games, which also tend to have many shallower niches, but at least for myself, I know which reviewers match my sort of games, and I know how to interpret their opinions. I don't feel like I have that same intuition in the literary world yet.

[LesZedCB]

Goodreads reviews are only useful for getting a lot of funny opinions after having finished a book.

not once have I ever used goodreads reviews for anything other than "damn, 3.6, this must be a polarizing book" before starting it.

[notatoad]

i'm pretty sure this is the first time i've ever heard anybody say anything positive about goodreads reviews.

[AlbertCory]

That's true, but that's why I read reviews of books I have no intention of ever reading. Conversely, GoodReads or Amazon are for books I might read someday.

[EamonnMR]

Book as occasion for essay is a great genre of essays though.