Do Reviews and Recommendations Matter?
Absolutely! They matter and make a difference.
To be honest, I’d never really thought much about the impact a review can have. But stop and think about it, can a review sway our decision to buy something, well yes! Of course. I’ve bought many things based on the reviews, one product coming out on top because it had better genuine reviews than the other item I was considering.
Reviews are sought after recommendations from those who have tried and tested a product, their opinion on value for money, whether the item did what it was supposed to and how they found it. Reviews matter and are important. Would you buy an item, book or otherwise, if 10 people have said its utter rubbish, not worth bothering with or it broke within an hour of receiving it! Erm, no!
It’s not just reviews on a website that count. Reviews also come by word of mouth, your family and friends will recommend something that they have thoroughly enjoyed or that has made life easier, something that has worked for them. They are your friends, your family, so chances are that you have a similar taste and you have things in common, importantly, you also trust their judgement. You know they aren’t just recommending something and singing its praises because they got a free sample or have entered a competition to get a freebie.
Do pictures of the item in action help?
Again, yes! If I’m buying something, I like to see the item in action, being used or the end product. Okay, not ALL pictures are helpful, a scantily clad person pouting at him or herself whilst holding a fishpond pump isn’t going to sway me to buy it. BUT if the review states that the item works and does its job, then I’m more inclined to investigate the pond pump further…. Hopefully without the unhelpful trout-pout kissing the screen.
So why didn’t I really connect the dots on reviews and the buying of books? For a fairly intelligent person, I can be a bit of a plum at times! Silly as it sounds, I just hadn’t thought about it. I like the authors that I like, so when a new book is released, I’d buy it because I’d like the first ones. I never really stopped to think about how I’d found it in the first place, what led me to read that first book that drew me in.
Book reviews are, like most other things, an opinion. They don’t show us that the power tool cuts a straight edge or that the glue actually sticks things. They are about someone’s personal preferences, we like it, we don’t or we think it’s okay. Whilst one person’s adoration and obsession for the sci-fi genre may not entice someone who loves [and only loves] Marlowe, it may make them look outside of their genre box or think about a friend who loves sci-fi. Reviews sway us.
Our love of books usually begins in our childhoods, the magical trips to libraries where the smell draws you in almost as much as the bakery does [depending on how hungry you are] The books that you find in school, ok, maybe not the ones you have to read as part of the curriculum, but the ones you find in the school reading room. The books people buy you at Christmas and birthdays, those are the books that you remember with love. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was one of the first books I fell in love with, the idea that something could be hidden from the world for so long and then brought back to life….. well, that just opened a door to my imagination and that door stayed open. Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree series…. What child wouldn’t love worlds in the clouds and Saucepan Head?!
How did I come by those books? Libraries, school and the gifts bought by the adults around me, that’s how. But I never stopped to think about just how those adults had come by the books in the first place, I never thought about the links in the chain that pass along those recommendations
Today, those recommendations and reviews are easy to come by. Globally, we are connected by the internet and those reviews are readily available on every website. We talk and we share our opinions on many things, including books, the films based on books…. Were they true to the books’ series…. Has a huge injustice been done to the characters…. Have the directors and producers taken too much of a liberty with the plot, dialogue, casting [think Jack Reacher and tiny Tom Cruise] and so on.
Reviews and recommendations matter! Get talking, share your love of books with children, young people and adults. Help to open up the world of reading, prop open the door to their imagination and introduce the wonderful world of books.
It will stay with them for life, they in turn will be another link in the chain and pass on their recommendations to their peers, their colleagues and to the children in their lives….. and so it goes on, the chain of learning, imagination and creation, be a part of it.
