There are some caveats to the public review.

If your item is private or with other restrictions, and the review was made public, it does not mean that everyone can read it. Story master built that in to the system, like if your item is 18+ and a person reads a highest item of 13+, it will not show up for them to even see the review, same if the item is private, the review can only be private.

Does that make sense? So some public reviews are only viewed by this group because access is group-only. Pretty sure that is how it works. But do be careful!