Do You Trust Amazon Reviews?

[chasity81]

I do not trust all replies and reviews. I know some are real obviously because I hAve written some, and I am sure that option isn't set aside just for me. However, I know companies that actually hire people to write those reviews for good money. I have to say that explains a lot about the phony sometimes repetitive reviews for certain products or products by the same seller. To be fair, Amazon would not be the first IF they did it. I love Amazon and have been with them since the beginning.

[Pineapple Sunset]

Since I purchase many of my books from Amazon, I read reviews before making a purchase. I find these reviews very helpful.

[lily_kh87]

I enjoy reading their reviews but I don't really trust them. When I see a book that I never heard about before having a lot of 5 stars, it just doesn't convince me.

[annelamb]

I agree with Scott for sure! I am more likely to trust an Amazon Review if there are tons of reviews for a book. When there are a lot of reviews, the dishonest reviews get diluted and the true review of the book can be deciphered.

[ArsenicCookies]

I tend to prefer reviews from people I know and trust. There is a select community of reviewers that I read that have been spot on. I usually skip to the mid level reviews first. they tend to be more honest about why they couldn't give it a high rating.

[Sarah_Khan]

Well I think whatever forum you use to see reviews you need to be careful. I mean I used to trust Goodreads' reviews but then I saw that an author wrote a review of his own book and his was the only review so it was marked as getting 4 out of 5 stars but that doesn't seem fair if the only review is the author!

[Annelore Trujillo]

I was just thinking along these same lines before I saw this post! I just finished an Amazon review on a book I recently reviewed on here. I had given the book 3 stars both on here and on Amazon. Most of the reviews, however, were only 1 star. The reasons were absurd. One was because the reader didn't realize that it was the first in a series and proceeded to say all series are pointless. To top it off, the title of that book clearly says it is the first in the series. So no, I definitely do not trust Amazon reviews. Not when they aren't even reviewing the actual content of the book, and the reader can't read the title correctly!

[Kourtney Bradley]

If someone chooses to read a book and then review it on Amazon, that's great! However, most people will only read the books that they are generally interested in reading that book. Often times, it seems like the negative reviews get kind of lost in the mix with the positive reviews, which is kind of annoying when I'm trying to find the good and the bad.

[jamesabr]

To a certain extent, I trust book reviews. If their from a genre that I don't usually follow closely, I'll skim through the reviews. If I'm familiar with the topic, I won't even bother looking at the reviews. Then again, I like the idea of liking a book because I read it, and not because someone else recommended it to me. I often research the author through their Facebook account and website to glean their writing style. Some authors provide chapter excerpts that allow me to decide, and I think that this method gives me more to consider than a review.

[dosenron877]

Currently, I trust the reviews only to initiate a process. Many times I read reviews of a book by Amy Cross after it is newly published. I have been a first reviewer at least once. I am not a relative of Amy Cross, I don't know the person, I like the books.

For unknown authors, I look at the number and quality of writing in the reviews. I don't look for academic quality writing but comments such as "Yo, youse gotta read dis" will keep my finger off the download button.

Then I download the Amazon sample. If, and this is extremely frustrating, all I get in the sample is the table of contents (TOC), I pass on the book. It might have been great, but I will never know that.

[Insightsintobooks]

I agree with you Scott. I don't trust it if it's someone I don't know and all the reviews are short.

[greywalker]

I'm ambivalent when it comes to Amazon reviews. I'm encouraged when a book has a lot of lengthy positive reviews, but that doesn't mean I'm going to like it.

I've found that when it comes to Star Wars books, I frequently love the books that all the reviews on Amazon says are the worst. So I definitely don't trust the reviews when it comes to Star Wars.

[The Researcher]

Yes. i always buy books or other items after going through reviews only

[Emmanuel Cassimatis]

I think the more reviews a book or product has, the more affordable reviews are.
But it depends even on contents, if reviews contains in-depth analysis or motivation, then it could be more trustful.

[Jennifer Allsbrook]

I have started writing some reviews and posting them on Amazon or Goodreads for a variety of books. Some of them are due to requests of authors or being provided an ARC of a book in exchange for a fair review. I will say, I am new to the book review game so my review numbers are small. I do hope to continue to review so I will be making a concerted effort to provide quality reviews on these sites as well as on this site.