Thursday was a crazy day, so this is going up a little late!

This week’s question is suggested by Puss Reboots:

How much do reviews (good and bad) affect your choice of reading? If you see a bad review of a book you wanted to read, do you still read it? If you see a good review of a book you’re sure you won’t like, do you change your mind and give the book a try?

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

I tend to read reviews for information at least as much as for opinions, so that I can find out enough about the book’s content to form an opinion of my own! The reviewer’s opinion is much more likely to sway me if I’m on the fence about whether or not to read a particular book, or if it’s one I didn’t really know much about until I encountered the review. If I’m intrigued and want to know more, I’ll probably seek out a few other reviews and see if there’s a consensus of favorable opinion. If there is, that book will probably end up on my TBR list at some point – although I’ll probably flip through the review excerpts on the book itself before I actually commit to buying it, just to confirm. On the other hand, if the first review doesn’t capture my interest, that book’s probably not for me.

There are some authors who are on my must-read list no matter what anyone says about their latest book, although I may look for reviews just to get an idea of what to expect – is this one up to par, a little bit off, his/her best one yet? At the same time, there are authors and genres that I have very little interest in, and am unlikely to expand my horizons in their direction. In those cases, the personal recommendation of another reader – ideally, one whose tastes I know to be similar to my own – would probably be more influential than a professional’s or a stranger’s opinion in convincing me to shift my reading in a different direction.

I do read a lot of book reviews, and rely on them in finding out about new things I might want to read, but if my mind’s already made up about “to read or not to read,” the reviews probably won’t change it,

Even if it’s no longer Thursday, you can still head over to the main post at BTT to see what other players had to say about this.