There are many issues within our #writingcommunity and since we are such a diverse group of people only tied together by our love of craft, there is no way to fix every argument circling our community. One thing we can do is try to be more supportive when discussing others' writing that we read or review. I've seen a lot of attacks, sometimes personal against the author, but mostly general snarky comments about "bad writing." Is it though?
It's one thing if there are obvious grammar issues throughout which might show not much professional care was given to the book or if there are multiple things wrong throughout that build it into something unreadable. It is a completely different issue if it is offensive or misrepresents a community. But I see a lot of authors slagging off traditionally published authors for a couple typos or a character they didn't like. For self-published authors, they seem to get it worse. But beyond this, I've seen people saying a "book is bad because..." and some of the reasons are not on point to use that language. "Bad" is a subjective word on its own, but it shows it is inferior overall, rather than inferior just to you. One author said a book was terrible because the pacing was slow, and it was mostly about characters and the plot was not exciting--to paraphrase the Tweet's wording. I looked up the book. Guess what? It was labeled as upmarket fiction (a cross between literary and commercial fiction) and won awards. Literary fiction focuses more on the art form of writing and is not genre-specific. Commercial is meant to be read for the story itself; obviously, this book was in between. My point is, this writer/reader went in with false expectations. Not every book should be a page-turning, fast-paced thrill. Frankly, I sometimes find the characters and narratives flat when they are too fast and not developed deeply. But that is my opinion. If your characters are a bit one-dimensional, it isn't for me, alone, because many readers focus more on the plot. Every reader is different and books you deem "bad" are done so on your own subjective merits, not all readers' preferences.
Sometimes, they are so flawed while also going against our preferences and expectations, and I get that. Personally, I usually DNF these; if I manage to get through, I explain explicitly the pros and cons and my reading preferences. But even a DNF does not always mean a "bad" book. One of my DNFs is by someone super famous, the book winning awards and becoming a TV show. My dislike doesn't make it bad; it makes it not for me.
I'm not at all suggesting we should gatekeep how to review or that we should never write bad reviews, but as authors giving reviews, we might have an edge on readers reviewing because we possibly better understand the principles and language about writing. When I see authors attacking other authors, trashing their work as "bad" instead of explicitly explaining preferences or the criteria upon which they judge, it reeks of envy even if it is not true. We should desire to bolster each other up when we review or comment on books by couching our dislikes as just those, not necessarily as inadequacies on the author's part. And if we can't, we should first ask ourselves why, and perhaps outline exactly the cons of the book if we feel we must speak against it.
I think we should examine our biases and expectations before we go to read something. Mine? I have high expectations for character development, narrative styles or POVs, and deeper meanings. A great plot helps, of course, but I'm more interested in who is going through it. If you have a book like that, I might just review it.