Question How does a review influence your opinion?

Good reviews influence my decision if they have read a lot of chapters

 

90% of the reason I read novel reviews is for the spoilers! Generally I like to be thoroughly spoiled; IMO it's well worth spending 5-10 minutes finding out in advance if a work is going to be full of content I don't like, rather than having to find out by wasting several hours reading it only to drop it in frustration half-way through.

Beyond that, whether reviews are positive/negative doesn't really matter to me*; quite a few of my favourites from this site have a lot of negative/neutral/mixed reviews (hovering around three stars even with many ratings). What matters is whether the review clearly explains why the reviewer disliked this novel. Because things that one person considers to be a work's negative points might very well be things I'd consider positive, or vice versa.

*Except when a work has a dozens of ratings and is still below 2 stars. But at that point you don't need to read the actual reviews to guess it's a case of just plain lousy writing.

 

The reviews does affect if I would read a novel sometimes. I would usually read the low stars review first then the high star reviews. And check if it's a constructive criticism. I won't get anything out of a review if it's only just pure praising or plain complaining and everything sounds unreasonable. I understand that everyone have their own preference and that not everyone could make a constructive criticism(and I'm one of them and I'm still learning how to make one) I need to see the structure of the story and the characters. And if any of the tropes that I don't like appears on the reviews, I won't exactly not read it. I'll give it a chance and if I still don't like it, I'll drop it.

 

Mainly i loook 2 things in reviews.
First, How many reviews are about "I came looking for copper but I found gold".
Second, How mnay reviews are about "Dropped".
If first one is high i do give a change even i didnt intent to read it. Likewise the opposite is true for second one.

 

It depends on what kind of reviews. I tend to be influenced by reviews that have strong evidence from novel about why they like/dislike the novel. Meaning if the review highlights from the novel why they don't like the novel, I will not start reading and if the review has quotes that support reading the novel, then I will check it out.

This is because there are too many stories in novel updates that has similar plot lines so I don't want to read the novel if the plot line is going to be terrible like the good FL ending up with the abusive non regrettable ML, or arrogant plot armor ML that just keeps fighting/getting Harem for no particular reason that makes no logical sense in the pov of novel.

I find this method really saved me a lot of time as most novels usually started out good but went down hill as the novel progress passed 100 chapters.

 

It's the synopsis and cover that draws me to eh novel... Next is the number of readers unless it's new to NU (usually tho I mtl such novels)...
I usually drop the novel the moment I read a well-written 3-star (or below) review that's at least 50 words long that really points out the novel's shortcomings and justifying the rate given... Of course if there's also a 50 word-review that critically analyses the novel including plot holes and bad characters but still recommends it, it give the novel a try...
Yea, I kinda rely on the reviews if the synopsis isn't very informative... But it's only for determining if I want to read the novel or not... Anyway there are hundreds of works out there~

 

I have a different opinion. If you have worked retail or customer service, you would know that the only people who do surveys or leave reviews are those who have a bad experience. The people who have had a good experience normally do nothing and the people who have a great experience normally just come back or they might tell someone that the service is great, but they don't typically take time out of their day to fill out a survey. Those who have had a bad experience though, will write a review and fill out the survey because they are upset and feel like they need to let someone know so they can get justice or punish whoever upset them. Thus, I don't trust bad reviews either.

What i do (and this is just me personally, not suggesting anyone do it), is look at how many chapters are out and the release schedule. If something has a lot of chapters and/or is released fairly quickly then i will give it a chance because in my mind there is a reason why someone translated 1000 chapters of it. same if it has quick releases, there is a reason why it's getting a new chapter every day without it being dropped.