Friday Discussion: Negative Reviews and Book Blogging Conflicts

Negative Reviews by amateur blogger's, is something which has caused conflict within the literature world, but as more young people begin reading and blogging the conflict has increased. Within the first few days of this year, we have all witnessed disgraceful and rather horrible behaviour by a number of author's and agents against negative reviews.
Of course this is not the first time this has happened, as over the years many blogger's have been verbally attacked and insulted by author's, due to good natured and honest negative review's.

I 100% support negative reviews, and am not afraid to write or post one. As I say if an author can write a bad book, I can write a negative review.

The whole point of being a reviewer in my mind, is to put forth your opinions, why should people be penalised for writing a bad review, but encouraged to write positive reviews, when we should be writing our opinion's only.

Many reader's I know, do not base whether they read a book or not, on a singular negative review, but I have witnessed many say they would never read a book by an author who acts unprofessional.

Advice to Reader's
Always remember that one negative review is the opinion of one person alone, people's opinions on books differ depending on what they prefer. One person may not like a book, but you may. Do not let review's put you off reading a book you think you may like.

Advice to Bloggers
Personally I believe all blogger's should post completely honest reviews, though of course their is numerous blogger's who do not want to, as a way to avoid conflict, I support and understand their descion to do so. But I ask for all you blogger's to sit and think before you refuse to post negative review's, you will not ruin a friendship with author's, by posting a negative review, as the majority of author's accept what is written by their work, and the author's who will complain are the one;s you do not want a friendship with.
Negative review's do not ruin your chance of receiving ARC's, in fact publishing companies probably prefer to see blog's who have a mixture of reviews. Just remember, to always make sure your reviews are not a major bitch-fest, but as positive as you can for a negative review. I always make sure to point out that my reviews are one singular person's opinion, and not the opinion of the whole blogging world.

Advice to Authors
If you plan to be an author, and are obviously putting your own work into the world to almost be critized by reader's, then accept and embrace the critizm you recieve, see it as a chance to improve your books, to become loved by many more.
Disgusting behaviour, will be the one thing to ruin a career, especially considering how close the world of book blogging can be, and news can spread like wildfire, as an author think responsibly about the decisions you make, as you are the celebrities of the book world.

Friday Book Discussion: How I discovered Young Adult books

When i was a child, I would describe myself as a reader, not an avid reader, nor bookworm, just a reader.
I read when I needed to, at school and with my mum at home, that was basically all.

Despite my love for these magical world's created, by mere words, I found myself lacking interest in reading as a hobby, I just wasn't very good at reading.

As the years went on I read more and more to myself, but overall less time reading altogether. I mainly read Jacqueline Wilson books, and was secretlty envious of those who read much more than me. I spent years on low reading grades, lower than average atleast, this was mainly because I was never good at reading aloud, the main way our reading grade was tested. I was unable to show my true potential.

I became close to giving up reading, until I discovered reading online, on websites such as Quizilla and FictionPress. These stories were written not by author's but my fellow peers. For me the stories were simplier to read.

Due to to these stories, I got a very werid obsession with vampires, as they were the hype of these websites, and in 2008 my sister told me about this book turned film about vampires: 'Twilight'. The moment I watched the film, I knew I needed to read the book, and that I did, which obviously resulted in me reading rest of the series, and finding a love of reading once again come back, but this time I could read these books and understand them completely. It wasn't long til I became the obsessive reader, I call myself today.
Reading is probably the best thing which has ever happened to me, and I hope it's a hobby and love I manage to keep for years and years.

How did you become a reader?
Please comment below