Week Five Prompt

1. It is appreciated that Booklist will not publish negative reviews, but I feel like that seems very biased. At the same time, it is unfair to publish a review that could crush the spirit. It is important to be able to express an opinion civilly, without offending the reader or the author. It may be difficult to absorb but constructive criticism does work! 
Switching to ebook only books, it is important to be able to review these materials. Without the reviews, adding them to the collection would be difficult. (WE NEED MORE INFO!). But really, if a librarian adds an ebook only book to their collection without thorough review, there runs the risk of the material being inappropriate for the patron. Reviews help the librarian, which in turn helps the librarian help the patrons.

2. Both reviews were reliable because both authors of the reviews were able to express their own opinions. The blog review did not give much appeal to the book but again, the author wrote with honesty. I feel like both reviews were a bit too informal, with grammatical and punctuation errors. I also think that the writers of both could have used some quotes from the books, or maybe even provided a little bit more of the plot to highlight the romantic suspense elements, if there are any! I would much rather purchase the book in hardcopy, because some of my patrons might not have access to the ebook version. And even if I bought it in the electronic version, that would mean I had access to Kindles or iPads that were able to be loaned out (budgeting, funding, ya da ya da). Since the subject matter of the book is mostly romance, I don't see this fitting into the romantic suspense genre.

3. The Angela's Ashes reviews all provided pretty good descriptions about McCourt's life. Each review had a different way of vividly describing McCourt's suffering. I have already added it to my growing reading list. I would add this book to my collection, and honestly, I would suggest it to be put into a school curriculum somehow. Maybe in a Depression/World War II unit. This book provides insight into the lives of people living during that era, and there is no other way to know about those people except through their own accounts. 

4. It is unfair that one type of book or one title will be reviewed to death while others do not get as much coverage. There are so many underrated books out there that have yet to "see the light" and given a review. I feel like this takes away from the libraries, who are missing books that should be in their collections. This also seems like some sort of marketing ploy. The big publishers make it into the libraries because their books always get reviewed, which leaves the smaller publishers and "underground" authors in the dust.

I do not buy for my library but whenever I read for my own leisure, I use Amazon or Goodreads. Goodreads usually has decent reviews, especially if the reader did not like the book. I use Amazon if I want more "sound" reviews.