Jedi Mind Control

Reviewers can have a lot of influence on readers. In fact, some might go so far as to say that reviewers can use Jedi mind control! Well, not really, but it is true, at least for me, that my reading experience is affected by reading reviews before the book.

Sometimes it might be as simple as making me more excited to read a book. For example, I haven't read TEN THINGS WE DID (AND PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE) by Sarah Mylnowski yet, but this morning, I read what feels like a billion raving reviews for it, so now I'm pumped to get it from the library and tear my way through it.

On the other side, there have been times when I've removed a book from my to-read list because of a slew of bad reviews, or times when I kept it because I still felt that the summary was interesting, but I wasn't exactly eager to start it. It's times like these when I think about the huge impact that bloggers and reviewers can have on readers.

One interesting thing to look at it is hype. We all know those "big" books that get very hyped-up in the blogosphere, where it feels like every other post in your Reader feed is about such-and-such novel, to the point where you know that book's cover better than your own face. Sometimes it gets a little annoying to constantly hear about the same book, but as I'm sure we can all attest, hype is effective.

I've picked up certain books I initially decided to pass on just because its cover is plastered everywhere. When review after review raves about it, it's hard to resist. Of course, with all the hype, there are always a bunch of reviews that say something along the lines of, "Despite all the hype..." or "I just had too high expectations..."

So my question to you guys is, what do you think about the reviewer-reader relationship? How much do reviews affect your perception and experience of reading books? What about hype?