Joe Queenan writes in an essay titled “Enough With the Sweet Talk” in The New York Times that the main problem with book reviews isn’t the wrongly negative critique but rather the falsely effusive one:

Books are described as being “compulsively readable,” when they are merely “O.K.”; “jaw-droppingly good,” when they are actually “not bad”; “impossible to put down,” when they are really “no worse than the last three.”

Authors are described as a cross between Madame de Staëland and Arthur Conan Doyle, or are said to write like Charlotte Brontë on acid, or have out-Dostoyevskied Dostoyevsky and checkmated Euripides, when they are more of a cross between Candace Bushnell and Ngaio Marsh, or write like Willa Cather on Robitussin-DM, or have been narrowly out-Mavis Gallanted by Mavis Gallant, and were lucky to play Edna Ferber to a draw.

I’ve always said that I’d rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I’m not, but now it strikes me that I wouldn’t mind some unearned praise now and then …