Reviewing Stuff : The Art of Pleasing No One

P.S : Mark Manson, the new title of your next book.

P.S.S: Swear words will be used.

After years being a book reviewer and a food reviewer, I noticed that just the duty of reviewing stuff is difficult as fuuck, because no one is happy about what you are writing. Some authors actually despised book reviewers like some restauranteurs despised food reviewers. People will always complain either you write a good review or a bad review. Too praising of a review, and people will say that you’re being dishonest, too bad, and people will complain you’re being rude and disrespectful.

How do you write a review?

The thing is, there are no rules for reviews. Except if it’s your ultimate goal is to be a journalist for a big press company and your review blog is your ultimate portfolio, then don’t swear. But I would like to remind everyone that it is still a PERSONAL opinion. Therefore, you shouldn’t dictate anybody what to write or not to write.

The Only Tip You Have To Remember

My ultimate tip for writing reviews is this : write for you, what do you think about the book, your emotions, your taste while tasting the food, what can be improved, etc. Do not try to please everyone because you’ll end up pleasing no one at all. Might as well write for you and do not give a fuck what other people are thinking.

A message to ..

To the authors and restaurants that are not happy about negative reviews, well, you have exposed your work to the world, you should expect people to leave opinions about it. If not, everyone would be a robot and loving the same things. We are all different people. You should embrace your work, believe in it, challenge it and stand by it. Do not let your insecurities and some negative reviews ruin your days just because you cannot take it. There are different books for different types of readers as there are different restaurants for different types of eaters. If one person didn’t like it, it doesn’t mean the entire world hates it.

To the people who think my opinions differ from yours, if you are not happy about my choice of recommendations or even if you like one particular restaurant and I didn’t, guess what? I don’t care. We all have our own personal experience, our own tastes built from childhood, from the moment you taste your first food. And thank god we don’t have the same taste because the world will be a boring place.