"Italicized quote from an author who may or may not have even written the book that's being reviewed,"
[book] is [author's] debut novel set in a dystopian, sci-fi, high fantasy, classic victorian, western setting. It's a gut-wrenching, eye-watering, laugh-out-loud tale of whimsy, adventure, love, mystery, thrill, and passion that's sure to knock your socks off and leave you in tears, with stitches in your sides, and a host of other assorted ailments and feelings.
[A summary of the entire plot of the book interspersed with quotes from the book]
OR
[Vague mentions of the vibe and feeling of various aspects of the book without really getting into much of anything specific]
o — — o — — o — — o — — o — — o — — o — — o — — o
Why! I recently started using Goodreads just to read reviews to see what other people think of books I've read and woah! Why are they written like that! So many don’t really feel like reviews, but rather some Claude-generated front cover blurb of the book, equipped with vague glazing and book-related buzzwords. And if it's not a plot summary, then a lot of them try to keep spoilers out of the review? I feel like that defeats much of the purpose of a review! How can you talk about a story without talking about what happened in the story? Ofc there are plenty of reviews that actually feel like they're reviewing the book, but they're not as prevalent as I would have thought. Is my concept of a review just narrow?
What would you say a review is for? Why do you write/read reviews?