“Review bombing” and lost book deals: The Goodreads scandal explained

The literary world is no stranger to scandals, but the latest is certainly strange: It involves the popular book-reviewing app Goodreads, first-time author Cait Corrain and a practice now referred to by some as “review bombing.” 

Corrain, a science-fiction romance author, was set to debut her novel “Crown of Starlight” in March 2024, however it was announced recently that she was dropped from an imprint of Penguin Random House. 

People have alleged Corrain created fake accounts to review-bomb upcoming authors — some of whom are people of color — and books with similar themes on Goodreads. Typically, review bombing is used as a trolling tactic by online fandoms to skew the ratings of media on review sites; in this case, it’s books on Goodreads. The goal is to create an illusion that the book is a flop by intentionally giving it one-star reviews. It’s happened in many different fandoms but most notably the first “Captain Marvel” audience score on Rotten Tomatoes was review-bombed by disgruntled Marvel stans before the movie even came out. 

In Corrain’s situation, writers connected the fake Goodreads accounts back to the author. Since then, she has been dropped by her publisher and the backlash directed at her (and the Goodreads platform itself) has been immense. 

Here is a timeline breaking down the events of the scandal: 

June 2023: Cait Corrain snags a book deal and distributor for “Crown of Starlight”

The first-time author officially secured herself a book deal with Del Rey Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and book distributor Daphne Press.

Corrain said of her debut novel: “While it’s absolutely a snarky, sexy, slow-burn, space-opera romp, at its core, this is a story about love, sacrifice, sexual agency, embracing your identity as a form of rebellion against oppression, and the difficult choices we all make between facing our fears, or losing the chance to become who we’re meant to be.”

December 2023: Rumblings on social media of fake accounts review bombing new authors 

For months, online several authors had been noticing strange activity on Goodreads. They noticed that an unnamed author had been writing one-star reviews on Goodreads for unreleased books that were slotted for an early 2024 release — just like “Crown of Starlight.”

The reviews dated as far back as April 2023. Nine accounts gave only one-star reviews to the same upcoming debuting novels. The accounts liked each other’s reviews. The reviews were left on mostly authors of color like Bethany Baptiste, Molly X. Chang and Kamilah Cole.

According to Gizmodo, one of the fake reviews on Chang’s unreleased book coming in spring 2024 said: “I can’t believe Del Rey spent half a million dollars on this when they could have spent half a million dollars on anything else. Sorry not sorry.” 

But also, the reviewers gave “Crown of Starlight” positive reviews, adding the book to lists and liking each other reviews again. According to the authors involved, when they began tweeting about it in early December, the accounts disappeared. The authors tried to handle the situation privately but were frustrated by Corrain’s alleged deflection. 

Tuesday, Dec. 5: Author Xiran Jay Zhao tweets about the alleged review bombing

Internet personality and sci-fi author Xiran Jay Zhao tweets: “If you as a debut author are going to make a bunch of fake Goodreads accounts one-star-bombing fellow debuts you’re threatened by can you at least not make it so obvious by upvoting your own book on a bajillion different lists with those same accounts.”

They refuse to name names in the X thread but the tweet went viral across all platforms. It was viewed 1.6 million times on X. The book community began piecing the story together even though it was never revealed that Corrain was who the group of authors suspected of review bombing.

Wednesday, Dec 6: Corrain deflects and says her friend “Lilly” a diehard “Star Wars” fan was the person review-bombing

Shortly after the Goodreads accounts were discovered and beginning to be linked to Corrain, they denied they had any involvement in it, saying, “I did NOT review bomb anyone. I did not positively review my own book with false accounts.”

In a Slack group for debut authors, Corrain claimed she had evidence that linked the view bombing to her friend “Lilly.” The evidence was screenshots of conversations between the two of them where Lilly admitted to writing the negative reviews because Corrain had mentioned certain books that may cloud her debut. People including the authors involved have theorized either they were in on the review bombing together or Corrain was just talking to herself.

When the authors in Slack said they wanted to talk to Lilly, Corrain did not facilitate a conversation between the parties. But she did reveal that Lilly was a Reylo stan or Kylo Ren and Rey super fan from “Star Wars.” But Reylo stans on Reddit said that they did not know a Lilly and claimed she didn’t exist.

The afternoon of Dec 6: Zhao posts a TikTok that alludes to Corrain being responsible for the alleged review-bombing 

As Zhao’s tweets picked up traction, they took to TikTok to reveal to the book community in a six-minute video, explaining the fake accounts review-bombing debuting authors. Then they shared a public 31-page Google document online. The document shows screenshots of the fake accounts and their views, connecting the review-bombing to Corrain.

According to Zhao, the conversations Corrain had with “Lilly” also mirrored Corrain’s writing style. 

Dec. 11, Corrain’s literary agent drops her

Corrain’s book agent, Rebecca Podos, said on X that she was cutting ties with them.

“Cait and I will not be continuing our partnership moving forward,” Podos tweeted. “I deeply appreciate the patience of those directly impacted by last week’s events as I worked through a difficult situation.”

Tuesday, Dec. 12: Corrain admits to review-bombing and apologizes to all the people she’s wronged

At midnight on Tuesday, Corrain posted a lengthy apology on X, sharing that they had suffered from addiction, alcoholism and mental health issues that they were hiding. She admitted to making eight profiles during a “complete psychological breakdown,” boosting the ratings of her books, review-bombing debuting authors and leaving abusive reviews. 

She said that she felt no ill will towards any of the authors she review-bombed.

“It was just my fear about how my book would be received running out of control,” Corrain wrote. “My memories of this are extremely fuzzy, so it’s possible there are a couple other authors. If so, please know I take full ownership of what I did to you as well. I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know. There’s nothing I can say to erase what I did to you.”

Corrain also admitted to making up “the world’s sloppiest chat with a non-existent friend who was supposedly to blame, and sent fake apologies for the actions of said ‘friend,’ which only made things worse.” 

She added that she will be checking into rehab and will eventually reach out to everyone directly impacted: “All I can do going forward is to try to live my life in a way that shows you these aren’t empty words.”

Dec. 12, 7:02 PM: Del Rey Books tweets that they have dropped Corrain as an author and “Crown of Starlight is no longer on their 2024 schedule

After her apology, Corrain’s publisher Del Rey Books announced on X that “We are aware of the ongoing discussion around author Cait Corrain. ‘Crown of Starlight’ is no longer on our 2024 publishing schedule.”