Nothing Wrong With 3 Star Reviews

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!

What Is a Wonderful Problem?

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Basically a wonderful problem is something that is overall a good thing, but that you need to do extra things to keep the problem a good thing. It's needing to buy clothes because you lost weight. You have to spend money to keep yourself covered appropriately. You lost weight but it's a hassle to have to spend money because of your weight loss. Unfortunately, that is not my wonderful problem at the moment (it was in the past) My current wonderful problem is that I have too many good reviews for my book now to post!

I just got a good review from Reader's Favorite. They can't post to Amazon because Amazon does not let professional companies to post reviews. I have been waiting for years to get this review, I think since 2016 when I published "Un-Clenched Emotion". It's as follows:

Reviewed by Diana Lopez for Readers' Favorite

Un-Clenched Emotion: A Collection of Poems has original and creative content. Natasha Gruss explores many different topics while maintaining a high level of attention to detail. She conveys her thoughts vividly as she describes the landscape and other elements of nature. She writes about the sea and the sky, expressing appreciation for everything around us. She continues with the topic of despair, where she examines dreams and feelings. She continually alludes to nature, which remains a background theme. Gruss concludes with a section on philosophizing, where she provides her perspective on situations such as the passing of time and facing life. With its inspirational verses, this collection will give you much food for thought.

I wish Un-Clenched Emotion had been longer. I enjoyed all of the poems because Natasha Gruss describes sensations, aromas, and objects concisely, without losing the central message that she is conveying. The language is simple and honest, without pretension, which is why I think everyone will enjoy this collection. Enjoying was my favorite part because it has the most descriptive poems and covers many emotions and situations. By sharing her thoughts, Gruss awakens the reader’s imagination. Her outlook is uplifting as she talks about feeling good and enjoying life, but she doesn't avoid expressing herself on matters such as confusion or loneliness. This is the ideal collection to savor during a peaceful moment.

Photo by Avery Evans on Unsplash

So how did I get so many good and honest reviews? I first started getting reviews from chatting with other authors on Goodreads through the Author Program and Goodreads Groups. Unfortunately, the author's there could only post to Goodreads at first.  You can find my Goodreads reviews at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32320363-un-clenched-emotion and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32282264-un-clenched-emotion I gave honest reviews to get my own good reviews. Fortunately for me, there is too much to my story in getting book reviews in a blog post. I do want to mention that I was going to post just the 5 star reviews of "Un-Clenched Emotion" on my review page here, but there are too many of those to post.  What a wonderful problem!

If you would like to see my Amazon reviews they are at: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Collection-Poems/dp/1537725327 and https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZNVH4Y/  Admittedly, there are not many reviews on the first link (at the moment) which is to the print version of my book. I am still having a hard time selling that. Maybe someday! Like how now the Kindle version of my book is at a good number of reviews. I want to mention these are only the U.S.A. reviews. I also have reviews from Canada, the U.K., and right now one from Australia, Amazon pages.

Photo by Anastasiia Rozumna on Unsplash

There are a couple of shout outs I want to add to this. First to Diabolic Shrimp. This is an Author who offered to do Amazon reviews for a copy of a free book. He gave me my first Amazon review which was 5 stars. It took him a few years to do this. His link is: https://diabolicshrimp.com/the-reef/. Second I want to thank Sandra who runs a wonderful, honest, review site. Authors can upload their books to be reviewed at: https://sandrasbookclub.blogspot.com/2019/09/read-review-program.html You have to review another book in order to get in the program. There is no guarantee that you will get reviewed but I was lucky enough to get a lot of reviews from her program! Sandra also helps run a Secret Santa Exchange group on Facebook. I'll let you look that up on your own if you're interested. Authors are guaranteed to get an Honest (could be 1 star) review from here if they give an honest review to another book first and within half a month's time frame. 

There are many more authors who I have connected with throughout this journey, and I thank them all and apologize for not adding your name and information here.  I want to say I am not doing reviews for anyone right now. Not unless you are on the Facebook Secret Santa or another Facebook group that's by invite only (sorry, I don't have the power to invite for this group.) I will stop rambling now.  I wish for all of you to obtain your own wonderful problems!