Bad reviews suck. Particularly bad book reviews. “There’s no appeals process. No way to defend yourself in the court of public opinion, nor to question the critic’s qualifications. Whatever they say, you eat. Period. Of course, if you happen to be named Clancy or King, or even Updike, a bad review doesn’t matter so much, because you’ve already got an established audience. But for most writers, the plain cold fact is that critics determine how your work is regarded by most of the world. Consider the math: Tens of thousands of people read the reviews in major newspapers. Only a fraction of that number ever read the books being reviewed. If anything, writers suffer bad reviews more deeply than other artists.”