People are talking about Hillary Clinton’s new memoir, What Happened, but many of the comments so far have been about the author and subject of the book rather than the content.
The memoir was released on Sept. 12 and presents Clinton’s account of her U.S. presidential election loss last year.
Because that election generated a lot of emotion, the release of the book has also sparked some strong opinions.
Within a day, more than 1,500 customer reviews of this book appeared on Amazon.com. Most gave ratings of either one star or five stars out of a possible five stars.
What Happened is a 512-page book. Reading something of this size takes time. If someone is able to read at a rate of one page a minute, it would take around 8.5 hours to get through this book, without stopping for a break.
Did each of these reviewers actually sit down and read the book the moment it came out?
Jonathan Karp, the book’s publisher at Simon and Schuster, said, “It seems highly unlikely that approximately 1,500 people read Hillary Clinton’s book overnight and came to the stark conclusion that it is either brilliant or awful.”
The people at Amazon.com also had questions about the reviews, and as a result, they quickly pulled close to 1,000 of the original reviews of What Happened.
Still, many of the comments have to do with Clinton and U.S. presidential politics rather than with the book itself.
“Pssst….Hey Hillary. You lost because you are a career politician.. and we, the lowly taxpayers (remember us?) did not vote for you. Especially us Women!!! You let us down. you and Bill both,” one commenter posted in a one-star review.
“As a supporter that was proud to proclaim ‘I’m With Her’, I was devastated by the election results,” a commenter posted with a five-star review.
Such responses — positive or negative — are worthless. They do not help potential customers decide whether to read the book. And they do not meet Amazon’s guidelines for customer reviews.
“The Amazon Community provides various forums for engaging other users and sharing authentic feedback about products and services — positive or negative,” the guidelines page states. “Content you submit should be relevant and based on your own honest opinions and experience.”
In order to comment intelligently on a book, one must first take the time to read it. When this has not happened, the comments, whether positive or negative, are meaningless.
The same holds true for other online reviews.
Product reviews should come from people who have used the product. Business reviews should come from people who have dealt with the business.
It may be tempting to leave a bad review of a book if one does not like the author or the subject of the book. And some may wish to post a scathing review of a business or a product after an owner or visible figure has said or done something offensive.
But such actions will eventually make customer reviews meaningless.
Reviews should provide some insight into the book, product or business in question.
There are plenty of forums where one can discuss political figures and election outcomes. And there are friends, coworkers and acquaintances who will be happy to weigh in with their opinions.
Political opinions should not masquerade as customer reviews.
John Arendt is the editor of the Summerland Review.