I almost 100% of the time judge a book by its covers. I hate the saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” I think it came from a time less thought was put into a cover when it was just a blank hardback because now covers are part of the reading experience.

There are millions of books in the world and thousands at every book store I cannot possible read the synopsis of every book and then decide what I want to read. I look for a cover that intrigued me, I’ll read the synopsis/look up reviews but it honestly is a huge tell for me.

If the cover is lack luster in my experience the book has been too, now don’t get me wrong some books have great covers but are still not great but I’ve tried before to push past my dislike for the cover before bc someone recommended it to me or it’s really popular but it’s always the same.

Covers are more than just pictures IMO they should (in theory) showcase the whole vibe that the book is going for. Take for example my most recent read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, looking at the cover it’s interesting it looks retro and the wave is beautiful, now once you’ve read the book that cover makes 100% sense and like wow it’s such a good cover for the novel.

Idk how people choose books when shopping if not at least to some degree judging the covers if that’s you how the world do you do it?

I mean I think some books it can be very clear about an authors stance based on the material. Though I guess technically we can never be 100% sure about that, I think it’s fair to make some educated guesses that an author that writes a historical fiction book about the civil rights movement in America and writes those things in a favorable light most likely agrees with the civil rights movements beliefs.

I do think sometimes it is harder to tell the authors opinions and like you said unless you follow them on social media or know them in real life we will never 100% know for sure

No they are typically speaking about opinions sometimes political but sometimes not. One of the most recent ones was in response to The Poppy Wars by R. F. Kuang in which someone commented that the authors commenting on racism in the fictional world was putting in their own opinions and said I quote “real fiction authors used to write without inserting their opinions on every page” which is the review that prompted my post here but certainly wasn’t the first time I have seen this criticism as of late.

I mean I completely agree there is not to my knowledge a book where the author (intentionally or unintentionally) doesn’t insert at least part of their own POV. Which is why it’s been puzzling to me as well to see this critique on so many books lately! I was wondering if I had been missing something in the general book community as of late. It seems though these may just be people from a loud minority of book people!

That’s what I thought too the first few times I saw it, but now I keep seeing it in like all of the 1-2 star reviews I see that are from the average reader. I am an average reader I think so I try to get their POVs over reviewers but there seems to be some disconnect in the lower ratings