The reader's guide to knowing which online book reviews to ignore

If you’re at all like us, you take a quick peek at book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads before buying a book. Now, of course, reviews aren’t the only factor to consider when choosing a read. There are also covers, blurbs, and sample chapters to consider. But we’d be lying (and you probably would be, too) if you said you weren’t ever influenced by online book reviews. The sad thing is, fake book reviews have become a real thing these days. And we’re not even really talking about the fact that authors can pay for fake reviews and often get their friends and family members to write reviews for them. (Amazon is working on that issue, so we’re not really going to address it here) We’re talking about reviews that were written by trolls who probably haven’t even read the book and are only reviewing it out of some kind of malicious intent. Who are these people who have nothing better to do than savage authors online in the hopes of making themselves feel more important? Well, we’re glad you asked.

The anatomy of the book review troll
There are a few different types of book review troll. The most common are:

1. Authors who start up fake profiles to do nothing but belittle their competition in an effort to elevate their own books
2. Academics who go out of their way to badmouth genre fiction and anything else they deem unworthy of their great big brains
3. Miserable jerkwads who can only find joy in life by making others feel as miserable as they themselves are

You can find book review trolls anywhere, but their favored habitat seems to be Goodreads. Don’t believe me? Look up just about any book you adored on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads. For the same book, 9 times out of 10, you’ll find a higher average rating on Amazon and Barnes and Noble than you will on Goodreads. Sometimes the disparity between the different sites is shocking.

How to spot a troll on Goodreads
Now, it’s important to remember that not every reviewer who leaves a negative book review is a troll. Heck, we do it all the time. So, how do you know which reviews are from good, honest folks who have read the book and which are from bridge-dwelling, miserable trolls? Here’s a few tips we’ve unearthed for spotting trolls on Goodreads:

• In the review itself, a troll often offers very few actual details about why they hated a particular book. They tend to keep comments vague. Trolls might say something like, “My dog has had craps I find more interesting than this book,” while someone who has actually read the book and is offering genuine feedback is more likely to list out reasons why they felt the story was lacking, and specific sections of the plot that annoyed them. In short, trolls don’t say anything that can easily be argued or disproved.
• Click on a suspected troll’s profile and check out their average book rating. Trolls generally have an average book rating around a 1.5 or a 2. A rational person who hated everything they read would likely stop reading and take up knitting or tv watching. Trolls, on the other hand, LOVE to hate anything and everything.   
• Check out the Goodreads profile of a suspected troll and you’ll often find that they call themselves out as being “brutally honest.” They sometimes even admit that they’re assholes. Trolls often take great pride in being assholes.
• Check out what books the suspected troll has rated. An author trolling other authors will rank maybe one book as a 5 and every competitive book in that category/genre a 1 or 2. Chances are, the one book they loved was their own.
• An academic trolling genre fiction will only 5-star the classics and anything super pretentious and intellectual. Romance and sci-fi doesn’t stand a chance with this type of troll.
• Trolls have LOTS of friends. They somehow find each other on Goodreads. If you glance at a suspected troll’s profile and still aren’t sure if they are really a troll, check out their friends. Trolls of a feather flock together.
• Check out the shelf-names of a suspected troll. If you see stuff like “this author should just die already” and “I’d rather drink battery acid than read this shite again”, chances are good you’ve located a troll.    

Spotting trolls on Amazon
This one’s a little tougher. But as with Goodreads, check out a reviewer’s average rating. If they hate everything they read and leave ranty-but-totally-vague reviews, they’re probably a troll. And I generally avoid any review that isn’t marked as a verified purchase or labeled as an ARC read, because if they didn’t buy the book, and they weren’t given an advanced reader copy by the author, how the heck were they able to get their hands on it? (Answer: they didn’t, so they didn’t even read it before reviewing. The only time this isn’t true is with books that are in Kindle Unlimited. It’s our understanding that books that are loaned through the KU program don’t come up as verified purchases.)  

What do I do?
In closing, trolls can not be reasoned with. Don’t engage with the trolls. (That goes double for authors. In fact, just don’t read your reviews at all, authors. It’s better for your self-esteem that way.) The only sane thing to do when you encounter a troll is to ignore them. Don’t read their reviews, accept their friend requests, or strike up conversations with them.

If you’ve made the mistake of engaging with a troll and unwittingly started a war you’d like to escape, you might want to consider blocking them. (Yes, you can do that! Simply scroll down to the bottom of the troll’s Goodreads profile and click on the “block user” link.)

Good luck, y’all! And happy reading.  

(PS: We also think you should consider avoiding reviews from folks who love absolutely everything they read. That’s just unnatural and kind of freaky!! What kind of rainbows are those freaks smokin’? But we digress…)

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