(Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addict. Hop in anytime!)
Question
If you don’t like a book that you said you would review, do you graciously turn it down and explain why or do you struggle through it and hopefully come up with a half-decent review?
Answer
I’m not a big fan of quitting, so unless it’s genuinely horrible I almost always power through reading and reviewing any book I pick up; for example, of the 55 or so books I’ve read so far this year, there were only five I didn’t like — and of those five there was only one I didn’t finish (The Elegance of the Hedgehog).
Reviewing books you don’t like is just as important as reviewing books you do — it’s the perfect way to practice giving constructive criticism, and can spark some good conversations between you and your readers.
Your turn, folks. Do you review books you don’t like?
I don’t finish books I don’t like. 🙂
Oh wait, I don’t review books formally either.
Hmmm… I do love reading though. And I love reading your reviews. So I say keep it up – even if you don’t like the book. 😀
I try really hard not to finish a book I don’t like, but doing so feels a little like failure. So I really have to despise a book before I give up.
Yay for reading! I’m glad you’ve re-kindled your romance with it. 🙂
Eventually I hope my reviews read better than my fourth grade book reports, but until then, no one will care whether I liked a book or not. No one asks me to review books.
I’m also lazy enough that if I don’t like a book I may skip forward and try again a little later in the story. I do this more often when the book started good then started dragging. If that doesn’t help I just close it up and take back to the library.
I review most of the books I read to the end, some that get the skim treatment but review only a few of the ones I quit on. If someone were to ask me to review I’d do my best to finish. Then I’d have to find something kind to say to balance the overall conclusion that it just didn’t work for me.
No one asks me to review books, either, Kathy — at least no one like an author or publisher. It’s hard, but I also try not to care too much about whether or not anyone cares that I liked or didn’t like a book. There’s a lot of pressure to get a ton of comments and links and be one of the cool blogger kids, but in the end I like to think this blog is more of a way for me to express my love of books, without necessarily making it about the size of my readership.
I skim too! In fact I was just doing it with my current read, Willa Cather’s My Antonia; a lovely read, but goodness, does she like to wander! 🙂