Website launches Rotten Tomatoes for books

Literary Hub, a site dedicated to book news, essays and excerpts, has unveiled Book Marks, which they call a “Rotten Tomatoes for books.

“Book Marks will help readers find books they will love by giving them access to the critical discourse that is an essential part of our ecosystem,” LitHub executive editor John Freeman said in an announcement.

“We understand it is difficult to summarize the nuance and complexity of a review into a letter grade,”Jonny Diamond, the editor in chief of LitHub, said. “But we believe that Book Marks will lead more readers to reviews, and amplify critics’ voices in a way that benefits readers and writers alike.”

But perhaps Book Marks’ greatest strength is that it can function as an alternative to Amazon, which has become a default source of information on books, despite its often contentious relationship with the literary world.

Andy Hunter, publisher of Lit Hub, told HuffPost “We want this to be an open, collaborative thing that book reviewers are happy about,” he said.

"We felt that we could do something positive in terms of bringing these reviews to the fore,” Hunter said. “Putting them in front of people, where they could be useful."

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