Amzon.com on The Hunger Games

For this particular post I decided to go as mainstream as I possibly could, which means The Hunger Games and Amazon.  I figure if there is anywhere on the internet to sample reviewer climate, this will be a fountain of material.  To further this idea, I went with the front page reviews (which are lengthy enough to dissect), which are the most read by those looking into this book and still giving credit to the reviewers on Amazon.

First and foremost, it is evident that these reviews come and go just as fast as the book trends themselves.  Resultantly, you can feel the author of the review trying to get as much information out the door as possible before his commentary fades into the abysmal depths of the internet.  In short, the reviews are rushed, not in content, but you feel it in the reviewer's writing voice.  Additionally these reviews tend to very quickly summarize the plot of the books and find some way to label it as well, "Love triangle" and "Boy meets girl"; plenty of things you have heard all too many times.  They also throw in hooks that tend to be used out of context of the rest of the review.  One author in particular needed something to frame the word “naked”, so he used an unimportant scene from the book (relative to his review).  The mentality of salesmen, but this is really not unexpected.  
 
This leads me to summarize this culture as one of incredibly fast pace.  These books just pour in, best sellers shift so rapidly (although the book in the top slot tends to stay there for a while) that reviewers are just trying to smash their two cents into the mix before the door closes.  I don’t think there is really much to be gained from having your voice heard on a site as big as Amazon, and the reviewers don’t do much to advertise their sponsors or anything like that.   I really do believe they work at this pace because it is impossible to be heard otherwise.  

That just appears to be the reviewer culture at least, and although I am not a part of the reader culture, I can extrapolate what they are like based on the way the reviewers attempt to reach them.  Very much of literature is now pop culture, and that is obvious in the case of what top selling books have become.  Teenage oriented chronicles about things and stuff.  That isn’t really an issue though for the sake of writing this.  What is important is the pace.  

I deduce that the readers require only a brief synopsis of what they are about to read before making a decision.  With entertainment being nearly infinite in society, cutting out all of the potentially dull material before it ever sees the light has become a popular trend.  This system developed for the readers though, who are products of this culture.  

In closing, this is a fact paced world, which was unexpected.  It makes sense in the case of movies and other forms of media, but books have always kind of been exempt from the whole pacing issue.  I suppose it was inevitable though, patience is a trait possessed only by those who once survived without constant and instantaneous entertainment.  It is not a weakness to lack it in modern times; it is just the changing operational style of the industry.