While in most cases the back cover of the book is quite spoiler free, I still hate reading it. While it doesn't reveal details, it can and often does give at least a small clue as to the general direction the story will be going. I think it must be years since the last time that I read the back cover of the book before reading the book. Anyone else skip it on purpose or is it something you read before buying a book?
No, I definitely don't skip reading it. What exactly is giving me the reason to buy the book then? Only the title? I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I find the back cover to be a general summary that is supposed to convince me to want to read the book. I want to know at least a little bit about the story before heading into it.
Well if you are going to have no interest in the story at all. Then you may as well not buy it to start with, so I find that the back cover provides just enough information for me to make an informed decision about weather I will enjoy the book enough to warrant buying it.
I'm a sucker for happy endings so if the story summary on the back cover will give me a clue as to how the story will end I certainly will read. Often, after buying a book, I start off by reading the back page to see how the story ends. If it's all bleak . . . I definitely won't read the book.
Reviews, the fact that you enjoy the author's other books etc. There are a lot of things that affect your decision to buy it, the back cover is just one of them. (though an important one) I actually prefer to find my books online, this way I can find information and skip all the parts talking about the plot. Also allows me to quickly see how other people have rated the book, which is not always a good indication but does give you a tiny view into how good it should be.
A review of a book is going to tell me A LOT MORE about a book than the back cover usually does. You're right about sometimes like an author's other books, and therefore, that swaying my opinion of the book, but that means I would be unlikely to try a lot of new authors like I prefer to do. As for seeing ratings online, that's a good idea to get a general overview of a book's quality, but it's not necessarily going to tell me about the topic and whether the story is going to enjoyable for me personally. To give an extreme example, if I knew nothing at all about 50 Shades of Grey (which would be nearly impossible at this point, but let's just pretend), then I could look at an overall rating and see that it gets 4.5 stars out of 5....and a lot of people have rated it, so that's pretty good! I have absolutely no interest in reading that type of book, however, so I would want to know at least the bare minimum about the plot or type of story it is before purchasing.
I always read the back cover of a book, it influences my decision to buy the book based on what was written there. I think the back cover is a good indicator if the book will catch your interest or not.
Without reading a brief summary, which is what the back cover offers, how then would you know what the book has to offer? I get that sometimes the brief summary isn't well written and does give a bit too much information, but it is rare that I come across this issue. I think that the summary on the back cover should absolutely give the reader an idea of what to expect. The key is to not give away the resolution or conclusion. It should give you just enough info to hook you and pull you in. So no, I don't not purposely skip the back cover but I understand why some might choose to.
