Title: Review Etiquette.

Author: The Reviewers of Wattpad

Genre: Random

Quick Summary: A meta-review on review etiquette and how to not be an asshole.

Thoughts:

I guess this is more rant-ish, but also it's about reviews and this is a review book so let's talk about reviews.

I get it. We're not professionals. Most of us don't have a reputation of any sort with any real published authors. None of us have forced Anne Rice or Christopher Paolini to lock their manuscripts in the cupboard at night, lest we tear their poor darling to shreds. But even though we are not professionals, we should act professionally.

Acting professionally can mean a few things. But there's a few things it doesn't mean.

When someone approaches a review book for a review, they are looking for a review of their work. They don't care what kind of lives we have [well, maybe they do]. They don't care about our biases. They give us a book, they expect us to read the book and give our thoughts on it. 

They do not expect us to say things like "I don't like this genre, but..." or "I'm not a supporter of [topic] but...". The long and short of it is they don't care. They expect to be heard facts about the book. The characters. How the dialogue is written. How real the setting feels. What needs work. What can stay. 

When you take a book you know is going to make you uncomfortable, or you find later something that makes you uncomfortable, the professional thing to do is to either stop reading and tell them you can't for X, Y, or Z reason, hand it to someone else in the case of a group account, or, if you're dead-set on reading the book anyway, don't bitch about what made you uncomfortable in the review.

There are a few exceptions to this, such as if a certain topic [mental illness, sexual assault, etc.] was not treated with the care it needs, absolutely bring it up. But if someone gives you a book, and it has a cat in it, and you hate cats for whatever reason, if you decide to keep reading the book for god-knows-why, you don't get to bitch about the cat. You just don't. You hating cats has nothing to do with the review at hand. You hating cats doesn't help the author. And us, on Wattpad, giving reviews? We're supposed to be helping authors. That's why we're on Wattpad instead of Goodreads. 

Don't bitch about the cat if you're the one that kept subjecting yourself to it. If you decided to persist in reading this book about a cat for fuck knows what reason, that is on you. You don't get to bitch about it in your review. Does the author get something about cat-care wrong? Tell them. Otherwise, you complaining about how much you hate cats makes you look like an asshole. Not only does it make you look like an asshole, it makes you look unprofessional.

I know. I said earlier none of us are professionals. But when we offer to read someone's book and give them insight on it, we damn better well act like we're professionals. 

And for the love of god, if someone points out that you ranting about how you dislike cats every five seconds makes you look like a dick, the smart thing to do would be to take all the sentences of cat-ranting out of your review. Not complain. Not block them. Not delete the entire review. Own up to the fact that you looked unprofessional. Also, apologize. And actually fucking mean it. 

I also know that screaming into the void like this also makes me look unprofessional, but someone had to say it. 

Reviewers, review the damn book. Don't go into tangents about your biases about the cat. Just read and review the fucking book, or turn it down, or give the book to someone else. It's just that simple. 

Thank you.