Negative reviews hurt, no doubt about it. One bad review can ruin your whole day, some can ruin your career. I am a writer. I am not a good writer, but I'm not a bad one either, I just write.I love to write and I love when other people read my work and enjoy it. I have had my share of five-star reviews and yes one-star reviews as well. After receiving a one-star review on my kindle books I feel like cutting my hands off, or tossing my keyboard in the trash, or worse, take up a second language and wander through the desert wastelands looking for the meaning of life.
My salvation has been the discovery that most critics that write negative reviews are just plain old mean people. When a mean critic writes something it is always nasty and cuts deep, beyond the lines of civility or constructive criticism..they go for heart's blood. They want the writer to feel pain or worse, wander in the wastelands.
Writers by nature are loners, avoid outsiders, living among their mental creations. Suddenly, exposed to a negative review, the first reaction is fear, an overwhelming urge to vomit, you have been outed, you're no good...you are a failure...oh woe is the writer.
But, if you know the critic's game you can beat him hurt him, make him squirm. How you may ask. Ignore him, or even worse thank him. He will shrivel up from the kindness, he will run and hide in the night like the roach that he is.
So, the moral of this rant? Ignore the bad stuff. Fix what you can, and move on.