I was looking on this site called Shelfari, (Which I highly recommend.) and I was browsing at reviews at this book my step mother raves about, My Sister's Keeper. Most said something like this; "I love it. All crying now in airport. Jodi is AMAZING!" Not even explaining why they liked it, (some did.) Now this review caught my attention:

“Ugh. It's not awful, by any means, and it's accessible enough to allow anyone to pound through it pretty quickly. The concept is compelling, the plot is reasonable for a made-for-TV movie, but I'm mildly underwhelmed. I didn't cry at the end (as I've read in many comments) or come to any great epiphany about any of my personal moral stances. It's solid, even worth a recommendation here or there, but I'm not singing from the hilltops anytime soon.”

And so did this one:

“Personally, I don't really care for Jodi Picoult. I feel that her characters are very one dimensional. It's a shame, because I feel like her story premises are great. She just doesn't seem to know how to really find the depth that would make this and other books go the extra mile and actually be great books instead of just good idea.
Aside from the shallow characters, I did find this story intriguing. But the ending killed it for me. I don't want to spoil anything, but it definitely turned me off to her even more.”

This, in my opinion is the infuriating part: the positive reviews are short and are painfully repetitive. Sometimes I feel like saying to these people: Why is it good? Why do you love it? Why is she a good writer? Why did it make you cry? They may give me satisfying answers. Some may realize they said it was good just because everyone else did. Many would stare at me, question me, tell me I am jealous and say I will be never be as talented as her.

The cynical reviews however, had reasoning, examples, details, perfect elaboration, strong vocabulary and intelligence by their other reviews and etc, and even stated that they didn't mean to offend anyone who liked it. I could see somewhere that they gave it a chance, but it just didn't work. My guess for this is because they wanted to really dissect it, and pull it apart, seeing what it really was, while the positive reviews were shallow and didn't seem to understand the moral/lesson/structure of the story and just liked the concept of the highly publicized poor idea.

Sorry for my cynical bluntness, but this is my suggestion: Positive, make an effort to make some reasoning and convince me. Cynical, try not to be so judgmental and pick-apart-like. (myself included.)

If you are concerned with this thread, send me a message. Thank you all again.