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What do you think of the reviews of a favorite book?

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message 1: by Teresa (new)

Teresa Buczinsky (teresabuczinsky) | 14 comments Mod
Look at at least 3 positive and negative reviews of a book you loved. In the discussion, write down what you thought of readers' comments.


message 2: by Teresa (new)

Teresa Buczinsky (teresabuczinsky) | 14 comments Mod
I looked at a few of the reviews of To Kill a Mockingbird, the novel we will read second semester. This book has nearly 46,000 reviews and nearly two million ratings. Half of the people who review the book give it five stars. It's hard for me not to feel angry when I read the one-star reviews, and I want to dismiss the critics as idiots (some of them ARE idiots), but a few of the negative reviews came from very intelligent people who dislike what they consider to be the book's idealistic view of morality. Some readers just cannot believe that someone as good as Atticus Finch could exist. I pity these people and wonder what kind of life they must be leading. Of course there are people as good as Atticus; in fact, the book shows that Atticus is far from perfect. He cannot be bothered to take his daughter to school on her first day, and he is blind to the evil at the heart of some people. This causes him to put his children and himself in terrible danger. It was interesting to read smart criticism of this book. It made me want to argue.


message 3: by Natalie (new)

Natalie Miodowski A book I loved was The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. It was a very interesting and intense read. I liked it mainly because it was very exciting to read and I couldn't put the book down. I also loved it because I thought it was relatable- not in the sense that I was ever marooned on an island, but because all the characters are kids my age. I also thought that it taught me a lot of new vocab and was quite challenging at times, which can be good. But with that being said, at times, I found it hard to understand with some of the words that were being used. Also, it was very sad towards the end and did not end pleasantly (but still a good ending). Finally, the thing that made me the most confused was the large amount of characters, which made it hard to keep track of them all. There were like 30 main characters and you had to learn their names quickly in order to understand the story. But overall, an AMAZING book.


message 4: by Mandi (new)

Mandi Hall (ahall8325) I searched up a few reviews on The Tower of Geburah, one of my all time favorite books. It's a great read allowed to kids and, at least I think, has love able characters and a good storyline. Many people loved it for the same reason I did, but there were some who didn't like it. They thought it was too much like the Narnia books. In a way, I guess it is, but it is still unique and fun in its own way. I like to call it, "one of the only Narnia copies that was successful." There is a reason for that.


message 5: by Julia (new)

Julia One of the book series(I couldn't choose a favorite) that I loved when I was younger and constantly re-read now is the Harry Potter series. I was comparing the reviews of the first and last book and found similarities and differences that I agree with and disagree with. The one thing I agreed with is that the series is a work of art and "magical". Not everyone may think that but I do and certainly everybody else that gave it 4 or 5 stars. One thing I agreed with that was a negative aspect of the first and seventh combined is that the seventh book did not live up to my expectations. I as well as the other reviewers expected more and felt that the book series went down from the first, not by a lot but it still did. Overall I think that all of the reviews are truthful although I would not agree with some of the more negative reviews. This book series has always been my favorite and always will be so I don't have anything bad to say about it.


message 6: by Grace (new)

Grace A book that I loved when I read it is When The Wind Blows. I am not sure if it is a "prequel" to the maximum ride series but it is very similar in plots and the overall topic which is genetic mutation. Some of the reviews gave this book only one or two stars. They had said that they didn't like his writing style or it was a miss, but I completely disagree. James Patterson is my favorite author and I love his writing style. A lot of people gave him four or five stars as well. They said that the book was captivating, and they couldn't put it down. They also loved the way the story unfolds and the twists in the story. When I read it, the exact same thing happened to me. I think I read it in one day, because I literally could not put it down, afraid I would miss or forget something. This book was fantastic and although some people might not enjoy it as much as I did, I hope that someone tries it out.


message 7: by Scantu8170 (new)

Scantu8170 Julia wrote: "One of the book series(I couldn't choose a favorite) that I loved when I was younger and constantly re-read now is the Harry Potter series. I was comparing the reviews of the first and last book an..."
I also love this book but I think seventh book lived up to my expectations, but was a little slow.


message 8: by Natalie (new)

Natalie Miodowski Julia wrote: "One of the book series(I couldn't choose a favorite) that I loved when I was younger and constantly re-read now is the Harry Potter series. I was comparing the reviews of the first and last book an..."

I agree with Julia. The books are awesome!!


message 9: by Grace (new)

Grace I love the book Three. A lot of the reviews I read said that they loved it and I completely agree. I thought the plot was amazing and that the characters personalities evolved well. Some people, unfortunately didn't agree with me. Some one said...
"Unremarkable… The plot was predictable, the characters were generic, and everything else was mostly uninteresting."
I totally whole heartedly disagree. The book was amazing! But, for those of you who want to end it, this is the third and final book in the series Article 5, which also happens to be amazing.


message 10: by Sam (new)

Sam Park One book that I liked was "the Hatchet" by Gary Paulson. Some of the negative reviews I read we're just mad empty people that don't like reading, period. I agree with one review of how it was a little slow and how it was unrealistic that the character didn't notice the pilot's heart attack. However, I think it was a good book and was upset that many negative reviews were made by apathetic people.


message 11: by Erica (new)

Erica Schickerling Natalie wrote: "Julia wrote: "One of the book series(I couldn't choose a favorite) that I loved when I was younger and constantly re-read now is the Harry Potter series. I was comparing the reviews of the first an..."
I loved these books too! All of them made you want to never stop reading!!


message 12: by Erica (new)

Erica Schickerling Natalie wrote: "A book I loved was The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. It was a very interesting and intense read. I liked it mainly because it was very exciting to read and I couldn't put the book down. I a..."
Sounds like a good book despite the sad ending, maybe I'll read it!


message 13: by Scantu8170 (last edited Sep 17, 2014 11:52AM) (new)

Scantu8170 I love the book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and lots of people gave this book 5 stars or 4 stars which it does indeed deserve. It has a good amount of comedy and action and is just one of my favorite books. For the negative reviews people though it was boring and slow. They are wrong bc this book is very good and lots of good reviews.


message 14: by Tyler (new)

Tyler Perkins Easily one of my favorite books of all time, Ender's Game received a surprising amount of negative reviews. People claimed it was boring, perhaps because there was not a full-scale war to entertain them, but I felt that it had many moments with action. Ender, the protagonist, struggles against other kids and teachers while being trained to lead an army in a war for possession of the Earth. I understand that many of the critics did not like the kind of book that Ender's Game was, but some were simply unreasonable in their attack on the book.


message 15: by Erica (new)

Erica Schickerling My favorite book of all time has to be Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell. I love this book so much and a lot of people who reviewed it did too. Some people who didn't like the book as much said the beginning was slow and some parts were hard to follow. I agree that the beginning was a little slow but the rest of the book makes up for it. This book is my favorite because the main character is an outcast in the real world, but a hero in the world she falls into.


message 16: by Brian (new)

Brian Wolfe I think reviews on my favorite book, With the Old Breed, we're very accurate. They all stated points in the story that were very descriptive and week written. I only found one negative review which some jerk wrote because he doesn't appreciate the detail the author hoes into when describing some horrific sights that a WW2 veteran saw and what he had to do to stay alive. But, overall the reviews are very good as expected for such a good book.


message 17: by Elisa (new)

Elisa One of my favorite books is Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix. I also love the rest of this series, but i love this book the most because it's where the adventure began. I also like it because of how great the plot is and how I want to just keep reading to find out what happens next. The other readers that had reviewed the book mostly seem to agree with me, except some people that don't like the book for various reasons.


message 18: by Nimmy (new)

Nimmy Tomy When reading some of the reviews on one of my favorite books, The Series of Unfortunate Events, there were a few comments I agree with. One was how the author connects with the story and involves himself in the story too and another was about how interesting the story gets and how we can't put the book down. However I really didn't like how one person wrote that these books were fake and "unreal" and also I didn't agree to the part when someone said the author was writing so bad. I honestly like these books and I think people should read them.


message 19: by Cymon (new)

Cymon Wind I diagree with people who are picky about a book like The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas. They claim the boy should've known that it was a camp, but that's part of the narrative! Hitler tried to hide facts from the masses, which was a big part of his downfall. Kids really didn't know.


message 20: by Katie (new)

Katie Kenny One of my favorite books is The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I saw a lot of reviews, and most of them were good. One of the bad ones caught my eye though. Someone was saying how it was to cheesy and there was no depth to it. That didn't affect my opinion of it. I think that it was very well written and I love it.


message 21: by Anthony (new)

Anthony One of my favorite books Farenheit 451 has mostly good reviews. Great book, must read.


message 22: by Glenn (new)

Glenn My favorite book The Hobbit had great reviews. I have read quite a few of the comments and all of them are positive and I think that is great. For the bad comments thats to bad because this book was great.


message 23: by Julia (new)

Julia One of my favorite books is Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender. I love the book and the writing style and the genre and everything, but some of the negative reviews really bothered me. I like to think I'm not swayed by other peoples opinions, but the bad reviews make me overthink the book and I end up getting a bit of a negative attitude towards the book myself. So I don't like negative reviews on my favorite books, but not everyone likes the same thing and that's ok.


message 24: by Kaitlin (new)

Kaitlin Sattley One of my favorite books is the A List series by Zoey Dean, particularly the first one, A-List. This book tells the story of upper east sided, Anna Percy, moving to L.A. To live with her dad. I agree with reviewers when they said "full of scandal and excitement, you just want to keep reading more!!" This book was so intriguing and the plot never stopped. I related well to the story because I love reading about the lives of teenagers with no limits. However, I have to disagree when some reviewers said this book is stereotypical and that the characters were unlikable.


message 25: by Alyssa (new)

Alyssa O'Connell One of my very favorite books is A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. I absolutely adore how he blends all the REAL grimm fairytales together. His voice shines through so much in his books which I love because he is so funny. In the beginning, I really disliked the way he narratated but by the end I couldn't wait for those parts. This is a super funny, fun book that you WONT want to put down. Most of the reviews were really good and had mostly the same opinions as me. I love the very different styling of writing and how he made classics contemporary.


message 26: by Amber (new)

Amber Alerta One of my favorite books, now a movie, is The Spectacular Now. It was absolutely amazing. Multidimensional on so many levels, yet a light-hearted, easy breezy read on the outside.


message 27: by Amber (new)

Amber Alerta (accidentally posted w/o finishing) ^ unfortunately, others seemed to think differently. Many failed to see the introspective significance of the book, and just thought it was stupid teenage drama. One reviewer said, I did't like the style in which this book was written, I felt like I was listening to a stupid self absorbed teenager talking non-sense." However, I decided to simply toss these people aside because they're opinion of this book, to me, is irrelevant. On the contrary, there were many positive 5-star reviews for this book, saying what I had already said. It's a beautifully written book, and I almost feel bad for the people who couldn't recognize that.


message 28: by Anthony (new)

Anthony Good


message 29: by Elisa (new)

Elisa Glenn wrote: "My favorite book The Hobbit had great reviews. I have read quite a few of the comments and all of them are positive and I think that is great. For the bad comments thats to bad because this book ..."
I loved this book. It was really good.


message 30: by Grace (new)

Grace Glenn wrote: "My favorite book The Hobbit had great reviews. I have read quite a few of the comments and all of them are positive and I think that is great. For the bad comments thats to bad because this book ..."

I didn't like The Hobbit that much. I actually found it kind of slow and a tad boring. I don't know if it is just me, but it took me forever to read. Sorry, but the Hobbit just didn't work with me. I don't think it is my kind of book......because seriously it was AAAALLLLLL walking.


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