So, I read book reviews in a very strange way.
First of all, if the book is already on my TBR list, I won’t read the review. There is something enjoyable about walking into an unknown story and becoming best friends with the characters by the end. So even if a review has no spoilers, I won’t read. I want to form my own thoughts around the world.
If I’ve never heard of the book, I’ll read the synopsis first and if that hasn’t sold me on it, I’ll scroll to the bottom of the review to see how the reviewer liked the book. Sometimes those two things are enough to add a book to my TBR shelf, and so I stop reading.
Sometimes I still am not interested in the book, so I’ll read the whole review. Occasionally I will stop in the middle of a review because something peaks my interest enough to add it to my shelf.
But the books I have no interest in or I think they would be terrible reads, those are the ones I read the whole review. I think it’s because it’s kind of like a personal clif notes, and it lets me have a brooder knowledge about books without having to read all of them.
So after I read a book, that’s when I go and read all the reviews I can find to see if other people loved the book as much as I did. I stalk the author and twitter feeds, looking for whether I’m alone in my feelings or not. And then I move on to the next book.
What about you? Do you read every review or do you have a system?