For similar reasons, I started paying for professional book reviews again a few years ago. There are too many books being published nowadays for me to really be able to keep up for myself. And the opinions you get on places like Goodreads and BookTok are almost by definition low effort. with professional reviews, there’s a higher chance that the reviewer took their time with it and has decent media literacy skills. And I spent less time and money on books I don’t actually finish.