I've come across people who have become offended at 3 star reviews (out of 5), sometimes even 4 star reviews! The offense at 4 stars isn't that common, so I'll just focus on the 3. It came to my attention that people (not just authors) get offended when they get 3 star reviews sometimes when I reviewed Noom on Trust Pilot. They asked me to. I gave them 3 stars because it wasn't really working for me, but there were some pretty cool things, and I thought (still think) that the program could be beneficial to other people. They got offended and tried to get my review taken down by claiming I wasn't a real person! I proved I was real, the review is still up there, and Noom wrote that they were sorry I had a bad experience underneath it. Really??? It wasn't a bad experience, 3 stars out of 5 is not bad, it means it's okay but not the best! Ironically, now that I have the free version of Noom, I would give that 5 stars. Still haven't lost much weight, but there are a lot of cool features, and they give you give gift cards if you earn seeds. But this has not much to do with books.
The other day in my romance book club, I asked what star average a book had, and we found out it was 3 point something stars. Everyone in the club said that's pretty good. I told them the Noom story, and they agreed that 3 stars wasn't such a terrible thing. It means it's okay. I've had authors ask me to give them a higher rating in my reviews, and I really don't like that. If I review someone's work, I will be honest about it. If an author asks me to review their work, I will tell them I am going to be honest, and I will not post the review if I feel I can't give them at least 3 stars. 2 stars is a bad rating. I'd really rather not have a negative impact on someone's hard work, even if I would have graded it an F. I will just have no impact on their work at all. I did refuse to review a book that I felt I could only give 1 star to, and the coordinator of the review program said that was okay. I want to act with integrity and not lie.
When it comes to my book, Un-Clenched Emotion, and the reviews I get, I will take whatever comes my way. Some of my first reviews were 3 stars, and I was happy about it! And I was right to be happy about it. It's pretty cool that my book is so highly rated now, and that is so much cooler because I never asked anyone for a better rating or complained. The last review I got was only 3 stars, and I'm still glad about it. The person said my poetry just wasn't their thing, and I respect that. Everyone's got different tastes. And they still gave it 3 stars! I don't have any one or two star ratings yet, (knock on wood,) but if I get them I will accept that. I hear it's part of being a published author. I would rather people be honest about my work than lie about it. It's so much more wonderful when I see those wonderful, unasked for, 5 star reviews that way!
