From a New York Times Inside the Best-Seller List column by Elisabeth Egan headlined “James McBride Doesn’t Read Reviews. Here’s Why.”:

If you’re an author who happens to be a glutton for punishment or, worse, an insomniac — or, disaster scenario: both — you might be familiar with a certain masochistic feedback loop. It begins on Goodreads, which tends to have the gentlest of anonymous criticism, and ends with Amazon’s ratings system, that easily sortable and searchable slam book which doesn’t tread on a writer’s dreams so much as stampede them. Between these poles are all forms of social media; and, on a different continent but still the same planet, reviews printed in the font you’re reading now.