Activist-driven one-star reviews overwhelm the Booker winner
Readers can’t rate the winner of the 2024 Booker Prize because of concerns raised about a flood of geopolitical one-star reviews.
Readers have been prevented by Goodreads from reviewing the winner of the 2024 Booker Prize, Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, after the site was hit by a wave of complaints about the author’s sympathetic descriptions of Russia.
Goodreads, which is the world’s largest and arguably most influential book recommendation website, posted a message telling readers they can’t rate the book because of “unusual behaviour” and a flood of one-star reviews.
A quick glance at the reviews that made it on to the site before the ban was put in place suggests geopolitics are at play.
One says: “Today I woke up because of the explosions of ballistic missiles. Russia launched them … and then I found that the Booker Prize was won by a book that romanticises Russians. The Soviet Union is even mentioned here with nostalgia. We live in Orwell’s crazy world.”
Another says: “I suggest author get first-hand experience of Russian culture. Especially go to occupied Ukrainians territories … Oh right, author probably doesn’t know Ukraine exists judging by the story.”
A third says: “On November 11, Russia attacked Kryvyi Rih and hit residential building. Almost the entire family was killed … This is only a small part of the terrorism Russia has been perpetrating in Ukraine for years, but the world doesn’t care, it continues to romanticise this terrorist state.”
Others describe the book as an “ode to Russia” while the author is accused of being “drenched in admiration of Russian culture.”
“In light of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the admiration seems misplaced,” says another.
Orbital dramatises a day on-board the International Space Station, where two astronauts are Russian. At only 144 pages long, Orbital describes the immense beauty of the earth, from space.
The negative reviews on Goodreads comprise 2 per cent of the total. More than 25 per cent of the reviews are five-star, while 35 per cent are four-star.
Goodreads reviewers can be brutal. Some readers were offended not by the Russian astronauts but by the book itself, with one describing it as the most “mind- numbingly dull pretentiously overwritten drivel I’ve read in a wee old while.” Another said: “Plotless, pointless.”
Others disagreed, saying: “This book is gorgeous, totally breathtaking. A spatial meditative and metaphysical odyssey … I was truly in awe of this thing.”
Harvey has said she didn’t want the book to be political but imagined the controversy would mostly be over climate change.
It is not the first time anti-Russia activists have created havoc on Goodreads.
Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote the mega-seller Eat Pray Love, pulled a book called The Snow Forest off the shelves in 2023 after being hit by a wave of discontent.
The Snow Forest takes place in Siberia, and readers – many of whom hadn’t yet seen it – objected to the Russian setting.
Gilbert released a video statement on her Instagram account, saying she was “removing the book from its publication schedule”.
She said Ukrainian readers had expressed “anger and pain” about the fact “I would choose to release a book into the world right now, any book, no matter what the subject of it is, that is set in Russia”.
“I’m making a course correction and I’m removing the book from its publication schedule,” she said.
“It is not the time for this book to be published.
“And I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are all continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm.”
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