Review sites, pandering to the authors?

This might be somewhat ranty. I'm sorry in advance. But not so sorry that I won't post it. So, clearly, I'm not very repentant.

Since my review blog is very new and I have no idea what I'm doing, I did what any sane person would do - research. I went on other review blogs and websites to see what the other kids are doing. Made sense, right? Right. So, a lot of the reviews seem like they are meant to just promote the author or the book. Can all the reviews really be "HOT HOT HOT" "SWOON" and so on? Now, don't get me wrong - there are amazing authors and books out there and I want to promote the crap out of them, cause they're awesome. But not all books are created equal, because not all authors are created equal. And even with the same author, some books are AWESOME and some are just so-so to downright unreadable. Maybe the author had a bad day. Or their editor took a day off. Who knows?

The whole point of a review is to give an honest opinion of the book, so that the reader can decide whether it's a book they would enjoy reading... While the priorities are different for each reader - for one the quality of the writing is paramount, while someone else can overlook bad editing because the story is good - it's nice to have a comprehensive review that covers these things. If the writing itself was awful, but I loved the story (yes, that has happened), I want to know. If the Dominant was really a pushover, I want to know. If there are some major flaws in the plot, but it's still worth it because the sex scenes are so hot or the love story itself is so cute, I want to know.

Also, as I mentioned before on this blog, I like the Male Dom stories or if it's not a BDSM theme, I still want to know if the male is an alpha type character. Otherwise, it just won't hold my attention and it will have been a waste of my money. So, I want the reviewer to be honest. I want to know these things.  I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that if someone is actually reading my blog (not likely right now, but there's hope yet), that they would want to know these things as well.

Anyway, to the dear authors - I don't ever want to hurt anyone's feelings and even if my review is not always a resounding accolade, it's not personal. It's just my opinion of what I think is hot, interesting, accurate, etc. I honestly felt bad when I posted my first negative review. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to misrepresent what I thought of the story just so that people would go out and buy it and find out for themselves that it was unfulfilling. Then they spent money based on what I said and it turned out to be untrue. Although, in the end, I guess it's all a matter of opinion... and some people will always disagree.

My hope for this blog is that people will come trust that I give an honest review based on content and not my constant need to please everybody. If I can turn some folks onto my favorite authors and help them discover fun stories then I will consider this a success.