Week 5 Prompt

These reviews seem to be genuine but it is hard to tell how accurate they are of the material without seeing more reviews (especially for the Amazon review since she might be an outlier who really likes this author). I think they both gave me a good feeling of what is in the books and that I know what type of audience the author is writing for. I would purchase this book for the library I work at since this book is extremely popular, especially during Christmas time, with our patrons.

Similar to the reviews of The Billionaire’s First Christmas, these professional reviews about Angela’s Ashes give me a good sense about what the book is about and what audience the author is writing to. After reading these reviews, I would add this book to the collection at the library that I work at, though I personally would not enjoy reading this book. For the reviews, this books seems to be well written and riveting. Additionally, at the library I work at historical fiction has been becoming increasing popular within the past 6 months to a year.

So the next question deals with the nature of reviews. I would argue that it is not fair that some types of books are reviewed more often than others but at the same time I do not think that reviews are necessarily a good thing. Now don’t get me wrong I love reading reviews for many of my hobbies. One of my favorite YouTube channels exclusively reviews board games. However, the problem with reviews is that, no matter how professional the company and review is, there are no unbiased reviewers. I think bias can be seen not only in how well certain books are reviewed but also how often certain genres are reviewed. The coverage does affect what books are purchased in a library’s collection due to the fact that those buying the books are only familiar with a small subset of the books that are published daily. For me personally, I use reviews a lot when I curate lists of books that the library I work at should purchase but in addition to reviews, I look at other sources to help verify the lists that I have made (such as bestseller lists and customer opinions from various book sellers). I think that it is fine if a review source does not print negative content as long as they are not changing their opinion and lying with the content that they publish. For me personally, I usually enjoy looking through Kirkus reviews to find new things to read since they are thorough with their reviews even when they are negative.