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Hillbilly Elegy,<\/em> J.D. Vance\u2019s memoir of a poor childhood in Appalachia, propelled its author to national notoriety in the wake of Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 election victory. Back then, Vance was an avowed Never Trumper, and called the former president everything from an \u201cidiot\u201d to \u201cAmerica\u2019s Hitler\u201d to \u201ca moral disaster.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Vance\u2019s account of the poverty, abuse and addiction that surrounded his life in Middletown, Ohio was seized upon by pundits as a guidebook to understanding the plight of the white, working class voters across the rust belt who won Trump his first term in office. The New York Times<\/em> called it a \u201csociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion,<\/a>\u201d and the book became a national bestseller.\u00a0<\/p>\n Eight years later, Hillbilly Elegy<\/em> is back at the top of the charts. The difference now is that Vance is running as Trump\u2019s vice president, and the reviews may be punishing him for it.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, paperback and hardcover copies of the book were ranked first and second on Amazon\u2019s bestseller list. The 2020 film adaptation\u2014which, unlike the book, was torched by reviewers\u2014shot into Netflix\u2019s top 10 most watched movies in the U.S., with viewership on Monday alone surging from 1.5 million to 19.2 million minutes, according to data from Luminate first reported in Variety<\/a>.<\/p>\n A lot has changed since the book\u2019s 2016 release. Vance was elected to represent Ohio in the Senate in 2022 after receiving an endorsement from Trump and financial backing from tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Vance\u2019s views on the 45th president have also undergone a complete reversal. In February, the freshman senator even said that if he had been vice president during the 2020 election he would have done what Mike Pence didn\u2019t\u2014support Trump\u2019s effort to invalidate the outcome of voting in crucial swing states<\/a>.<\/p>\n And now, in a development typical of 2020s internet culture, Vance\u2019s fans and detractors are taking out their opinions on his memoir.<\/p>\n There have been over 400,000 ratings of Hillbilly Elegy<\/em> on Goodreads, and nearly 70% of those have been four or five stars. This week, ratings and reviews of the book have been temporarily suspended, a sign the site may be trying to prevent review-bombing of the memoir following Vance\u2019s VP nomination.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRating this book is temporarily unavailable,\u201d Goodreads\u2019 website says. \u201cThis book has temporary limitations on submitting ratings and reviews. This may be because we\u2019ve detected unusual behavior that doesn\u2019t follow our review guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n Goodreads declined to speak with Fortune<\/em> on the record, but recently updated reviews show readers adjusting their opinions as Vance\u2019s political career evolved. \u201cJust in: Vance now Trump\u2019s running mate *facepalm*\u201d read a two-star review updated July 15, the day Trump announced Vance as his VP pick. \u201cThe author has become reprehensible\u2026and is helping create a culture of crisis for our democracy,\u201d read a one-star review posted November 2022, shortly after Vance\u2019s election.<\/p>\n July 15 was also the last time a new review was left for Hillbilly Elegy<\/em>. There were five reviews\u2014three positive and two negative. One person who left a one-star review simply said \u201cwish I could unread it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n On Amazon, which owns Goodreads, reviews of the book seem to have increased since Monday as well. One person who left a positive review said she was writing on the ecommerce platform because Goodreads had suspended activity to the site, while two five-star reviews spoke approvingly of the author\u2019s pick as Trump\u2019s VP.\u00a0<\/p>\n An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fortune\u2019s<\/em> request for comment.<\/p>\n Review bombing has become a persistent headache on rating platforms as readers and fans have weaponized them to inundate specific books with negative feedback, in some cases before they have even been released.\u00a0<\/p>\n A scandal in December brought attention to the issue<\/a> when a debut fantasy author under contract with Penguin Random House admitted to creating fake accounts on Goodreads to promote her upcoming book as well as sabotage several other writers.<\/p>\n Last summer, Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love<\/em>, indefinitely delayed publication of her upcoming novel<\/a> set in Siberia after more than 500 reviewers on Goodreads left one-star reviews months before it was published. Gilbert said she received backlash from Ukrainian readers that she would choose to release the book in the middle of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n