How Not to Respond to Negative Reviews: The Anne Rice Edition
I don’t mention book reviews much on this blog but a particular review caught my attention today. The review itself was a good read, but the fallout when fans of the author responded to the review is another story.
The comments were so entertaining and so incendiary that I could not help but share them.
Last week, Kayleigh Herbertson, editor of the Articulate and Intricate book blog, posted a review of Pandora by Anne Rice. The tl;dr version is that she found the book to be a poorly written novel where the vampires didn’t act like vampires.
The review was well-written, IMO, even though the reviewer didn’t like the book. I’m not an Anne Rice fan but I still like reading the review; it reminded me why I don’t read Anne Rice. And after Herbertson was done writing the review she took the book, which was already falling apart, and turned it into decoupage.
Now, with most reviews the story would end here. Few authors would have found the review, and if they did they might (at worst) respond directly to the reviewer with a nasty comment.
But not Anne Rice. This author chose to respond by posting a link on her Facebook page (where her 740 thousand Facebook followers could find it) and appended the invitation: "Comments most welcome.".
Thousands of Ann Rice fans clicked the link and read the review. At last count there were some 750 comments on that topic on Facebook as well as another 289 comments on the review itself.
Here is a selection of the more entertaining responses:
- HOW DARE YOU EVEN COMPARE SHITTY ASS STEPHANIE MEYER TO THE QUALITY WORK THAT IS ANNE RICE HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU FUCKING HAG, I HOPE YOU GET HERPES
- You bitch! >:(
- INSANE. To destroy a book like that is honestly the most disrespectful, idiotic thing anyone could ever do. An opinion is an opinion, but to do that… loved the rich descriptive narrative and historical context and character development (the other reason I read them).
- “I couldn’t simply write my opinion I had to be a destructive little shit aren’t i awesome?”
- Even if you dont like a book i dont get why you have to destroy it, Nazi memories perhaps? What you may dont get it is that a vampire is different from one another and a vampire drink less blood when he or she become more powerfull specially after the fight with Akasha, You even read the entire saga? You say is the second novel so i think no is the answer, anyway an interesting way to ask for atention to you and your blog.
The comments left on Facebook are almost as bad, though not quite as entertaining.
P.S. And if you think this was a fluke, check out Ann Rice’s response to negative reviews on Amazon. It is 1100 words long, a single paragraph, and it is truly epic.
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