Screen capture of an email from Amazon.

I know, right?

To be fair, Amazon has the right to accept or refuse reviews posted on their site because, after all, it is their site. If I did unintentionally violate their standards, I guess that’s that.

On the other hand, if you don’t like a book that’s supposed to be popular (and I did like the book for the most part), or say anything critical of it when you shouldn’t, does Amazon tip the scales in favor of “popular” works or “popular” authors?

No, probably not. They published my reviews of N.K. Jemisen’s The Fifth Season, Annalee Newitz’s Autonomous, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel Red Mars without a fuss, and I wasn’t 100% complementary about them. In fact, I even admitted in my review that I thought “Red Mars” was so bad, I stopped reading it.

So, I’ll accept Amazon’s judgment that I erred in some way and move on. No, I’m not interested in absolutely having my review published, so I won’t be reworking it. I just thought I’d mention this because it’s never happened to me before.

Of course, I could always publish it on “Goodreads”.