Authors hit by bad reviews on Goodreads before review copies are even circulated

Online reviews in general are pretty useless these days. We know that sites like Trustpilot will take down negative reviews if you pay them, Amazon reviews are mostly bots and some sites have weird incentives for users to write reviews.

E.g. take reviews of business on Google, there's no link to actual purchases, but you get a star and a "Local guide level 4" or something if you do enough reviews. A family member runs a consulting business, he has a 2-star review, the only review. It's not made by a customer, just some random dude. What it looks like is that this dude just walked around reviewing business after business, based on look of their office perhaps. He's not customer of ANY of them. So now multiple business are trying to have these negative reviews removed, Google doesn't give a shit, so what are these reviews actually worth?

Most people who write reviews aren't exactly the most mentally stable people either. If you're not getting something in return, most people won't write a review, that just leave the nut jobs.

My parents live in what is still a relatively rural area, it's unlikely you'd ever send something to their address on accident. They perpetually get kids toys shipped to their house. Address and name is correct each time. The package is clearly from Amazon. I'm relatively certain it is some part of weird review scam process. It's become a common enough thing that they just hand out the toys to who ever has young kids in the family.