A friend of mine was disappointed, actually unhappy, with a review she got for one of her books. I reminded her that all books that got many reviews would get some that were unflattering. Where the Crawdads Sing has over 126,000 reviews. Over 107,000 of them are 5 stars. And the average overall is 4.8 out of 5.0. Yet, there were over a thousand reviews that rated it a mere 1 star.
“Disappointing.” Or “Too unrealistic to enjoy.” And Most irritating book I’ve read in a long time!”
I’m sure Delia Owens didn’t stress about those. Bad and inaccurate reviews have always been with us. So, let me give you a few other reviews that somehow missed the mark. But none kept these writers from continuing to produce memorable works.
“I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English language.”
—San Francisco Examiner, rejection letter to Kipling (1889)
“Shakespeare’s name, you may depend on it, will go down. He has no invention as to stories, none whatever.” —Lord Byron (1814)
“Ralph Waldo Emerson [is] a hoary-headed and toothless baboon.”—Thomas Carlyle, Collected Works (1871)
“A huge dose of hyperbolical slang, maudlin sentimentalism and 
tragic-comic bubble and squeak.” —William Harrison Ainsworth, New Monthly Magazine, review of Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)
“A gross trifling with every fine word.”—Springfield Republican, review of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
“We fancy that any child might be more puzzled than enchanted by this stiff, silly, overwrought story.” —Children’s Books’ review of Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carrol (1865)
“The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.” —The Diary of Anne Frank
“It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.”—Animal Farm by George Orwell
So, read your reviews, good or bad, and see what resonated with your readers. And perhaps the “bad” reviews can either make you laugh or suggest a way to improve your writing. But don’t let the unfavorable reviews cause you to feel bad about your writing. Even if they are all bad, use them as a learning tool.
Please feel encouraged to add your comments about reviews. Do you read your reviews? How do bad reviews affect you?
I believe this is a true story. When Tony Hillerman was querying his work, one agent told him to “lose the Indians.”
There’s always someone out there who won’t like your work.
I do read my reviews sometimes and am shocked when it’s clear the reader wasn’t reading any book I’d ever written. It takes a tough hide to put your work out there.
Thanks for the comment about Tony Hillerman. I didn’t mention one I got years ago. Actually, it wasn’t a review. It was the response of an editor at one of the NY big six (now the big five). He said it wasn’t realistic. I had a man talking to his computer. How unrealistic is that? I guess I should have said the man was yelling at his computer. And you are absolutely right; it takes a tough hide to put your work out there and ask for people to critique it. Again, thanks for sharing.