A number of articles are appearing in the press about authors who have manipulated reviews of their books on sites like Amazon.com. See, for instance:
It appears to me that author Gabriel Cohen likely falls into this category of authors who manipulate Amazon reviews; who else could be responsible for continually lodging complaints to Amazon to delete perfectly valid reviews I've posted? I don't have proof but common sense tells me it is him or his publisher. And if it is him, or if he knows who it is, it only adds validity to my review that he appears to have abusive, passive-aggressive tendencies and an anger management problem.
An opinion piece and book review...:
Gabriel Cohen and Amazon.com: Is Gabriel Cohen a fraud?
Are the reviews on Amazon.com a fraud? Is Gabriel Cohen manipulating the reviews of his books? I believe, based on my experience, that they are manipulated.I don't know who is behind it. Who has a vested interest? His ex wife? Nope. Gabriel Cohen? Well...it would at least seem to fit with his personality as portrayed in the subtext to his books .... a need for control and extreme anger based on confused sexual identity? I would love to ask him.
Whoever is manipulating them, the sad reality seems to be that the reviews are no more than a marketing device on behalf of the authors (and to give the perception of positive reviews so that Amazon.com can sell more books). This is sad because Amazon.com creates the illusion of a community of readers; the reality seems to me to be that their concern is to maximize profit by fraudulently skewing reviews. I believe that this may constitute consumer fraud by Amazon.com for nondisclosure to its customers. Let me tell you why I think so.
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After having read a New York Times piece on author Gabriel Cohen, I picked up all four of his books to read. These books are: Storms Can't Hurt the Sky; BoomBox; Red Hook; Graving Dock. I wrote negative reviews on all four books and posted them. Within a few hours the reviews were taken down. I re-posted and a few hours later they were taken down again. I contacted Amazon.com and asked why. I was told that someone had complained about the reviews violating Amazon.com policy. Amazon.com said the reviews violated their policy because I was giving my opinion as opposed to discussing the subject matter. But what else is a review but an opinion? I nonetheless edited the reviews. They were taken down again. And again! The shortest review I wrote, which I thought a fair review was concerning the book Storms Can't Hurt the Sky. I wrote: "I do not recommend this book because it provides a superficial view of Buddhism." That review was taken down. Each time Amazon replied with a form notice stating that a complaint made them take them down. A day later Amazon.com published another five-star review which was a glowing opinion piece on the book. Nothing on Amazon.com reveals that Amazon.com will suppress completely reasonable, negative reviews at the request of an interested party. What customer looking at the Amazon reviews would know that this book has been reviewed negatively? Seeing three five-star opinions what reason would they have to even think that negative opinions were being suppressed by some self-interested party (the author? the publisher? someone, I don't know who).
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For the record, here are my reviews. They are my opinions based on my reading of the books and reflect no malice:
Storms Can't Hurt the Sky by Gabriel Cohen:
This book poses as a self-help book offering insights to a Buddhist path through divorce. In fact, this feels disingenuous because the book is not at all about a Buddhist path through divorce but simply uses Buddhism as a gimmick: Cohen as a dilettante with Buddhism to give him a hook for a marketing angle. A summary: Cohen's wife walks out on him and he spends the rest of the book asking "why me?" His solution for coping is a chance encounter with a yuppie yoga studio where he falls hard for the young meditation instructor; he spends the rest of the book gleaning insights into life from him and other so-called practitioners. Cohen writes that he tried therapy twice but he quit because it left him feeling "empty". The meditation instructor, by contrast, is all about positive energy. Fair enough. What I found disheartening were the continual passive aggressive jabs and anger (he provides a joke about "b*tches," for example, and wonders if he'll be able to restrain his anger if he runs into his wife again). The book climaxes when his wife finally does contact him with a letter and he responds (he tells the readers) withangry e-mails to her. Upon reflection, when his wife thereafter cuts off all contact, he admits he has much to learn still about self-control and hunkers down to try harder. The end. Cohen shares all this in a well-written way, and certainly his relationship sounds painful, but the book never reveals a Buddhist path through divorce; it read to me as a book by a controlling narcissist who deflects introspection with some superficial knowledgegleaned from a yoga studio; Cohen then summarizes this and some other related literature in order to create a book. He never addresses the anger that seems to run a river through this book; I was left feeling that he gained no more self-awareness than when he started. I would have been much more taken if instead of blaming his ex with passive aggressive anger, he explored its roots. What was it about therapy that left him feeling so empty? A fear of looking into himself? By the end of his book, like his exwife, I found him simply unlikable and didn't want to go back to Cohen either.
____________
Review of BoomBox by Gabriel Cohen:
Not recommended! This book reads like a bad high school creative writing exercise with lifeless characters and a DOA plot. It was truly one of the most painful reads I forced myself to finish (as a natural optimist I am always looking for light at the end of the tunnel, but this book turned out to be a mine shaft of brilliantly bad prose, a true contender for the Annual Bulwer-LytttonWinner).
___________
Review of Red Hook and Graving Dock by Gabriel Cohen
Not recommended! These books got generally good reviews so I gave them a shot. They unfortunately have wooden characters and stilted plots. Red Hook ends like a bad 1950s movie. The Graving Dock had a peculiar distraction: Cohen gave his main character an ex-wife and in this sequel to Red Hook, the protagonist dwells on his anger towards her. Having read Cohen's passive-aggressive nonfiction screed, Storms Can't Hurt the Sky, I couldn't help but feel that Cohen was simply taking cheap shots at his runaway bride in his fictional alter-ego. But, whether or not I'm correct about that, the bottom line is that by any measure of good taste, these are poorly written, uninspired books. A much better use of your time would be to pick-up Raymond Chandler.
After having read a New York Times piece on author Gabriel Cohen, I picked up all four of his books to read. These books are: Storms Can't Hurt the Sky; BoomBox; Red Hook; Graving Dock. I wrote negative reviews on all four books and posted them. Within a few hours the reviews were taken down. I re-posted and a few hours later they were taken down again. I contacted Amazon.com and asked why. I was told that someone had complained about the reviews violating Amazon.com policy. Amazon.com said the reviews violated their policy because I was giving my opinion as opposed to discussing the subject matter. But what else is a review but an opinion? I nonetheless edited the reviews. They were taken down again. And again! The shortest review I wrote, which I thought a fair review was concerning the book Storms Can't Hurt the Sky. I wrote: "I do not recommend this book because it provides a superficial view of Buddhism." That review was taken down. Each time Amazon replied with a form notice stating that a complaint made them take them down. A day later Amazon.com published another five-star review which was a glowing opinion piece on the book. Nothing on Amazon.com reveals that Amazon.com will suppress completely reasonable, negative reviews at the request of an interested party. What customer looking at the Amazon reviews would know that this book has been reviewed negatively? Seeing three five-star opinions what reason would they have to even think that negative opinions were being suppressed by some self-interested party (the author? the publisher? someone, I don't know who).
________
For the record, here are my reviews. They are my opinions based on my reading of the books and reflect no malice:
Storms Can't Hurt the Sky by Gabriel Cohen:
This book poses as a self-help book offering insights to a Buddhist path through divorce. In fact, this feels disingenuous because the book is not at all about a Buddhist path through divorce but simply uses Buddhism as a gimmick: Cohen as a dilettante with Buddhism to give him a hook for a marketing angle. A summary: Cohen's wife walks out on him and he spends the rest of the book asking "why me?" His solution for coping is a chance encounter with a yuppie yoga studio where he falls hard for the young meditation instructor; he spends the rest of the book gleaning insights into life from him and other so-called practitioners. Cohen writes that he tried therapy twice but he quit because it left him feeling "empty". The meditation instructor, by contrast, is all about positive energy. Fair enough. What I found disheartening were the continual passive aggressive jabs and anger (he provides a joke about "b*tches," for example, and wonders if he'll be able to restrain his anger if he runs into his wife again). The book climaxes when his wife finally does contact him with a letter and he responds (he tells the readers) withangry e-mails to her. Upon reflection, when his wife thereafter cuts off all contact, he admits he has much to learn still about self-control and hunkers down to try harder. The end. Cohen shares all this in a well-written way, and certainly his relationship sounds painful, but the book never reveals a Buddhist path through divorce; it read to me as a book by a controlling narcissist who deflects introspection with some superficial knowledgegleaned from a yoga studio; Cohen then summarizes this and some other related literature in order to create a book. He never addresses the anger that seems to run a river through this book; I was left feeling that he gained no more self-awareness than when he started. I would have been much more taken if instead of blaming his ex with passive aggressive anger, he explored its roots. What was it about therapy that left him feeling so empty? A fear of looking into himself? By the end of his book, like his exwife, I found him simply unlikable and didn't want to go back to Cohen either.
____________
Review of BoomBox by Gabriel Cohen:
Not recommended! This book reads like a bad high school creative writing exercise with lifeless characters and a DOA plot. It was truly one of the most painful reads I forced myself to finish (as a natural optimist I am always looking for light at the end of the tunnel, but this book turned out to be a mine shaft of brilliantly bad prose, a true contender for the Annual Bulwer-LytttonWinner).
___________
Review of Red Hook and Graving Dock by Gabriel Cohen
Not recommended! These books got generally good reviews so I gave them a shot. They unfortunately have wooden characters and stilted plots. Red Hook ends like a bad 1950s movie. The Graving Dock had a peculiar distraction: Cohen gave his main character an ex-wife and in this sequel to Red Hook, the protagonist dwells on his anger towards her. Having read Cohen's passive-aggressive nonfiction screed, Storms Can't Hurt the Sky, I couldn't help but feel that Cohen was simply taking cheap shots at his runaway bride in his fictional alter-ego. But, whether or not I'm correct about that, the bottom line is that by any measure of good taste, these are poorly written, uninspired books. A much better use of your time would be to pick-up Raymond Chandler.
