Okay, now I'm going to expand on my elsewhere post to vent "a little" more.
I've clashed with a few writer friends, all from the groups I've mentioned above, some more seriously than others. In two cases it was down to me delivering a semi-critical review on an ebook blog I used to run (for which reason it's been permanently abandoned - no fun anymore). In the details both reviews were actually quite positive, but the rules I'd set up for the blog meant one of them got only a two-star review on a technicality (price, basically, it was very expensive by my standards). Many months later I discovered he had (apparently) been stewing over this affront ever since, and (apparently) had asked me to delete it, though I had no recollection of that. I deleted the review when this became clear because, you know, "a friend", but there was a bad atmosphere between us that's only recently been resolved.
Then there's the person who I actually fell out with over a review, which went down at about the same time. In this case, we'd occasionally had hearty differences of opinion before, raised voices but nothing acrimonious. She had, however, recently been small-press published and had gained a major hankering for Amz/GRs reviews. Along with many of our mutual writer friends I'd bought a physical copy of her book (not cheap at all, and semi-chic-lit too, which is fine but not my thing); most of the rest had dropped a 5-star "it's great" onto Amazon, but it got to the point where every time we met she'd ask me where my review was. I eventually said I'd put it on this now defunct blog, but in the end it was only up for about three days because we self-destructed in the process.
In the aftermath of being published, her position on reviews became somewhat... nuanced. She'd assert, straight-faced, her certain belief that any reader posting a negative review was trolling the author. I laughed the first time she said this, which led to a friendly debate that changed nobody's opinion. No misunderstanding of terms here, I pressed her on this: "a deliberate act of meanness or sabotage", as opposed to my definition, "the thoughts of a person who didn't like a book". She held her cards, then doubled-down: not just that a bad review was invariably trolling, but that 3-stars constituted a bad review as well. This didn't really jibe with my thinking either...
In the end I wrote a review (3-stars... gasp), but emailed her before I posted to explain my reasons: the text was generally positive but also triggered certain blog-criteria (which in this case was convenient, since there's no way I could have rated it higher without committing seppuku minutes later). Knowing her feelings on the subject, I offered to simply not post if it would make her unhappy, but she said "No, go ahead" and even liked the review the next day -- but simultaneously the whole bad-review = trolling disagreement bubbled over between us. This time let's just say that it got personal (I blame the internet, well, partially) and we've not spoken in more than a year.
The short takeaway from this is, I've gained a fairly serious reluctance to review writers I know. I've never been happy to just say "wow, this is wonderful" when I don't feel that way, and while some have been okay with the results of that it's led to other awkwardness too.
For example: several years back when my novel was still a real thing instead of a fading figment of my imagination, an entirely different writer friend (who still is one!) also had a novel come out. She got on Goodreads for the first time, asked me for a review exchange. I had no reservation, we're good pals, and in keeping with my general and oft-articulated belief that 5-star and 1-star first-timer reviews are less valuable that 2s, 3s and 4s (because the extremes are where the crazies lurk!), I gave her an impartial, encouraging four, comfortably anticipating the same.
She gave me a five. Which is... fine, of course, but see above. So, the next time we got together I said, "Hey, would you mind knocking a star off? I'm no Nabokov, doesn't feel realistic, etc." Plus I was her first review there, so she looked like a clumsy sock-puppet... Her response was "Okay: if you'll add a star to mine." I was suddenly in this weird position of feeling like I had to toss my standards to do someone a favour, to skew all my reviews to favour a non-genre YA title that was hardly my usual cup of tea, being fully honest. I'm not the audience, you know?
Now fair enough, my feelings about online reviews aren't shared by every other wannabe writer out there; she wanted 5s because she thought those would help her the most; but it still seemed a very odd bargain to be striking, do me up and I'll agree to do you down. Anyway, because we're friends, I did it: but I also modified the review text, to made it clear that I know the author, that they are a really great person, that I hope they have lots of success, etc. Because it was important to me that, should anyone wonder why I'm ranking My Big YA Adventure alongside Lolita, the explanation would be right there at the top of the page. So she gained that 5-star rating but lost the impartiality element, which for me is a more important consideration when I check out what readers think.
Damn, I was going to do some actual writing today, and I've not even finished pouring out all the angst!
Can I add this to my monthly total on MyWriteClub, please?
Think of it as a black comedy - I do!
