At some point in the last five years I stopped reading reviews of things I was planning to read, watch, or listen to. I did this gradually, then with intention, then as a matter of principle.
\nThe problem with reviews is not that they're often wrong (they are). The problem is that they're often right in ways that change the experience. To be told that a book's third act doesn't stick the landing is to read the third act waiting for the landing to not stick. The reviewer's failure becomes your expectation.
\nThere is an older model of criticism that tried to prepare you rather than evaluate for you. The review as map, not verdict. Here is the terrain; here is what you will find; here is how I went and what I brought back. Whether you should go was left to you.
\nThat model is mostly gone, replaced by the rating, the percentage, the stars out of five. The reduction of an experience to a score is a very modern form of criticism, and I think it does more harm than good.
\nI still read criticism. But I read it afterward.
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\nThe problem with reviews is not that they're often wrong (they are). The problem is that they're often right in ways that change the experience. To be told that a book's third act doesn't stick the landing is to read the third act waiting for the landing to not stick. The reviewer's failure becomes your expectation.
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