I believe I have written something around 150+ book reviews for Amazon, but I have posted my last. Why? Over the years, Amazon has rejected three of my reviews for words they didn’t like. 

The first two rejections were pretty illogical. In a book titled “On Bullshit” (the book title and link laid out by Amazon at the top of the review), I used the word ‘bullshit.’ In a book titled “Assholes, a Theory,” you can guess the rest. I didn’t make changes to satisfy Amazon’s absurd demands. I simply didn’t post those reviews—the very short Assholes review is here.

The third rejection went differently. In a book titled “Conspiracies of Conspiracies” (history and content of conspirational thinking), the author notes that from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, most political and economic conspiracy theories blamed (among many others) ‘Jews,’ or ‘Jewish bankers’ for the world’s troubles. It seemed to me it must be the words derived from ‘Jew’ that was Amazon’s problem. 

This time, I tried an experiment. I re-submitted the review, substituting underscores ‘____’ for the words ‘Jews’ and ‘Jewish.’ The result was not merely another rejection but a warning letter telling me I had “violated community guidelines.” (Is there a guideline pertaining to underscores in reviews?), and I should consider the letter a “first warning.” Amazon would, they said, ban me from posting reviews should I continue my unsocial behavior. 

That email was the last straw for me. The “first warning” will be my last. I will post no more reviews of non-fiction books on Amazon. I will make an exception for fiction writing by authors I know on social media, especially if they also review one of my books (novels or non-fiction). I will continue to read non-fiction purchased from Amazon (via bookbub.com), and if interesting enough, I will continue to review them here as I have done now with my conspiracies review.

Matthew Rapaport

December 2024