I am not going to lie, I was scared to death to start this short story. The title is "One Star" and if you've been around the block as many times as I have, you already know how treacherous the world of the one star review can be for the reviewer. If the author is sensitive, having a bad day or simply cannot take any criticism about their book baby they and/or their fans could drop a world of hurt on you for ruining their career (when in reality their tantrum is likely the thing that'll do it). I'm not talking about shitty "you have atrocious taste and are a moron" comments left on your review. That's all part of this social media thing. I'm talking about real life danger. They might chase you down and hit you with a wine bottle, create a website and DOX you and spread falsehoods about you, attempt to sic a lawyer after you, call your place of work, create a petition in an attempt to make your name public knowledge on Amazon (thanks for boosting that one, Anne Rice), perhaps even do some snooping and locate your home address to pay you a little visit and give you a talking to. (NOTE: All of this shit has happened, if you want proof lemme know). But you can read some of it with linkage here .

So yeah, after all of this stuff, I am wary of the big, bad one star. I used to write light-hearted, silly one-star reviews like this one , this one , this one and this gem but I will now DNF if I hate something because it is never worth the time and potential hassle if someone is feeling slighted or may be slightly unstable and I have too many good books to read before some crazy person murders me.

Anyhow, I have some strong feelings on this matter as I was put on a "bad reviewer hit list" years ago for my open and big-mouthed book reviewing ways as were several well respected reviewer friends.

This story begins as a blogger is penning her final blog post. She has witnessed something so terrible that she is haunted enough to pull down her own blog because she feels her review sent an author off the deep end. I feared the worst, truly I did, but The Behrg promised this was a love letter to reviewers and I put my trust in his hands and he was not fooling around. There is a sinister turn and it surprised and pleased me very much. The things some people will do for money, for fame. . .

These are my quickie thoughts after a quickie read through but I plan to sit down and give it another read so I can chew on some of this stuff. It was super interesting and is worth a read. Thank you, The Behrg, for being one of the sane voices out here in the wilds!

And to all of you reviewer types who review day in, day out because you cannot stop YOU NEED TO READ THIS!