I never force myself to finish a book that I have no interest in. But it does not mean that the book is worse than an F. It is a matter of taste. When I was a girl, I loved this book enough to read it to tatters. Now, I can’t be bothered to finish it. I would still give it a B in light of my former feelings for it.

I can just tell that this is going to be a long comment. Hang in there; I have a point, I swear.

I write on my blog about things I react to. My posts are my reactions. Sometimes, in order to get everyone on the same page, I have to give a plot summary, a character synopsis, and an example of what struck me about the book. THEN I can talk about my reaction to the book (or movie, or political discussion, or horse). Taken as a whole, when writing about books, the thing looks like a review. But I don’t think it really is.

To make my point, I need to give an example. (See how this works?) I tried to read Anne Stuart’s Prince of Magic, and it was a DNF. But I never blogged about it because I had absolutely no reaction to the experience of reading it. I could see its technical merits, and all that, but I neither loved nor hated nor was bored by the book. There’s nothing there to write about. (At this point, if I had the job of reviewing a book, I could have continued reading, pulled out my literary criticism hat, and written an objective commentary and analysi. But I didn’t.)

A few months ago, I pulled the book out again and read it in one sitting. This time it engaged me, and I would have had more to say about it in a post. However, I never wrote about it on my blog, because really, there wasn’t much there which struck ME as new, unique, interesting (or on the other hand, derivative, corny, or oddly plotted). I started putting something together about it, because I thought I should, but it never jelled.

So, yeah, it was a DNF, but it wasn’t either a positive or negative DNF. I wrote enough papers about literatoor as an undergrad that I’ve lost the interest in doing that exercise. So I didn’t review it, but neither do I feel any conflict about not doing so.

Another DNF was Isabelle Allende’s Zorro, which I was very disappointed not to have finished. I wasn’t angry at the book, and I don’t think I snarked on it, but I was struck by my own disappointment in the experience of trying to finish it, that I blogged about the book.

A “professional reviewer” is to some extent obligated to deliver the goods. Some reviews are passionate and wonderful to read, but there are others which just sit on the page. All of that’s fine. However, I see blogging as a completely different enterprise with a different audience and intent.

We are trying to learn what other reader’s reactions are to the books. Perhaps we will try to duplicate that reaction by reading a book someone raved about, or perhaps we are intrigued to sample some aspect of a book which did not work for the blogger which could very well appeal to us, the readers of the blog.

So much of the “upset” about reviewing books on the internet by bloggers comes, I think, from not recognizing that all of the blog posts are in some way reactions. Personal reactions to a personal experience.

So, to sum up (good grief, woman!) my rule is that if it’s your blog, you can do or say what you will. Others can and will react as they will. (Wait. Didn’t Sybil say that like 3 days ago using many less words?)

I agree with Jaci about the reviews on Dear Author. I check by everyday to read reviews, catch up on news and follow and/or participate in interesting discussions. When books have been given lower ratings and even when they’ve been given glowing ones, the reviewer usually spells out what didn’t work as well as the positive aspects of the story. To me, that’s a balanced, honest review.

Case in point: The Princess Bride and The Lord of the Rings. I think the timing was all wrong when I picked up those books, so when I reread them, I made it a point to give it due attention and justice. And it worked.

That said, it’d be interesting to find out why a reader DNF a book. As DC so rightly put it, we all know the opinions are subjective.

So yes, by your standards I’m not a serious reviewer. But I never claimed to be one.

Janine,

I’m not a serious reviewer by those standards either. Nor, have I ever claimed to be or want to be. The thing is, even though dee and I are starting to get books sent to us, we make it clear we’ll be honest about what we though but never cruel. But the number of books we are getting isn’t huge, and we buy most of the books we review. Still, I have a few I bought in October last year that I haven’t read past the first few pages because I *cannot* make myself. I got as far as page 4 on one and gave up. I still may pick it up again someday if I have nothing else to read.

I’m just a TDB to waste my time on reading books that I can’t dig. Okay, that’s not entirely true, I’ve read some stinkers, but the ones that I have to force myself to read? Aint gonna happen.

I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be a “serious reviewer”, but that isn’t going to stop me from posting my opinions on the books I read. Read it or not, it will be there. As far as the DNF, the ones I have, I haven’t even read enough to tell you what the heck they are about, or I would probably post about them, too. The way your readers get to know if they want to take your advice about a book being good is if they see what kinds of books you didn’t like, JMO, of course, not worth much.

I’m still working on my take on the whole genre thing, see busy!

You guys are great, and I love reading your reviews. Keep it up!

And everyone, thank you for weighing in on this issue. You’ve given me a lot to think about.

Riley, I well understand this viewpoint and have given it some thought. Maybe the truth of the situation is that I’m not what you consider a serious reviewer. Yes, I’m getting free ARCs but I’m not being financially compensated for my time, and my time is more valuable to me than the cost of a book. Even as it is, it’s not easy for me to find the time to write for Dear Author. My compensation is the enjoyment I get out of reading and blogging, and when I reach the point of not enjoying it, I will stop doing it. If that makes me something other than a serious reviewer, so be it.

As I have explained, forcing myself to a book I don’t want to read more of will only make me like it less, and make it difficult to judge the book fairly. And as Jane has said, we have a small enough staff that passing the book to someone else who will want to read it isn’t practical. That being the case, what you suggest isn’t really an option. So yes, by your standards I’m not a serious reviewer. But I never claimed to be one.

I don’t feel that kind of obligation because I think even the reviewers at major publications, such as New York Times Book Review, don’t review every book they get an ARC of, or write positive reviews because they didn’t have to pay for the book.

I respect the Dear Author group and come here daily to read reviews, because you never use snark for entertainment value, you’re always respectful to the author, and even when you dislike a book, you always look for something of value in the story and never fail to mention what you liked as well as what you disliked. Your reviews read as if you wanted to like the book, even when you didn’t. I never sense that any of you take any glee or satisfaction in a negative review, but rather disappointment that a read didn’t turn out well for you. As a reader, I know that feeling of disappointment. As an author (and we know how sensitive we all are ;-) ) I really appreciate that.

If given a choice between free ARCs and having to finish every book I read, or buying my own books and having the freedom to put them down, I would choose to pay for the books I read.

Also a lurker here, and this is my first time posting. Gotta say that I LOVE this site though.
I understand this dilemma. When someone sends me a book, I always try to read it all the way through. Notice the “try”. Sometimes , usually, I make it. Not always. Honestly though, that’s just when authors send me something. I think, as an unpublished author, I try to be really…understanding(?) with books. I don’t mean that I say nice, flowery things about everything that authors send me. I can’t do that and still think of what I’m posting as ‘reviews’. But I try to find at least three good things about every book, mainly because I know how hard it is to write.
Thankfully, there aren’t many books that I don’t finish. And honestly, I don’t review everything that I read. Some books I read to review, and some books I read just for me. I don’t just review books that I like, but I read a lot of books that I would never review.
Getting ARCs is hard, becaue then I sometimes feel obligated to review that book. But one thing that we make clear, just like you guys do, is that just because an ARC is sent does not guarantee a “good” review.
I think you guys do a fabulous job, I love your format, and I appreciate your honesty. Keep up the good work!

And in the end, a review–even a “professional” review–is just an opinion. We would hope an informed and honest opinion, but an opinion nonetheless.

I’ve made this point before as well. It is one person’s opinion and should not be taken as more than that.

Janine, it seems from your thoughtful review of this book that you have behaved honorably. You stuck with it until you realized going on would actually lower the books rating for you. You saw the value in the book, though it didn’t hold you, in particular, glued to the page. You said what your experience of it was. I don’t think any author can reasonably ask for more.

It’s the nature of the beast that some authors *will* ask for more. But not the reasonable ones–as Meljean herself has so gracefully proved.

Thanks. I appreciate the vote of confidence, and it’s especially nice to hear this opinion from an author.

Can’t comment much on the review issue because I don’t pay much attention to them but reading a DNF review doesn’t bother me. I don’t think the reviewer is obliged to finish a book that they don’t care for any more than I’m obliged to finish a book I don’t care for. As long as they give it a fair shot, who is anybody to tell said reviewer how they should review a book?

Maybe if you have a big staff of reviewers, but we are just three people who do this for fun, and honestly the idea of having to mail out all the DNF sounds too much effort for this lazy person.

You know, on second thought, this does bring up something that had never occurred to me before. I’ve heard reviewers on various sites talk about passing books off to other reviewers up front if they know something in it isn’t to their taste, which sounds reasonable, but what about they ones they read and can’t finish then? Seems to me that not disclosing that fact in some way breaks the honesty code.

Put it this way, readers coming to a review site tend identify the tastes of the various reviewers and learn which ones have similar tastes to their own. Right? So, wouldn’t knowing that a reviewer couldn’t finish a book be useful information in that regard? I mean as a reader I certainly don’t care what books a reviewer doesn’t even try to read but it certainly might be interesting knowing which ones someone with almost identical tastes to mine couldn’t finish. And why.

So how in the world could that information be a disservice to anyone?

Not sharing it, on the other hand . . .

About the only way I’d be that serious about finishing a book that I wasn’t enjoying enough to want to continue reading on its own merits was if I was getting paid hard cash . . .

(As in a paid career, not that paid per book suspicious stuff Jane keeps uncovering. ;p)

Well, I’m an author and I think you are doing a disservice to the author if you continue reading a book that keeps on *not* working for you. Because. Guess what? All that’s going to happen is you’ll get really mad and hateful because for some crazy reason you’ve put it on yourself to finish a book that’s just not for you. I’m sorry, if a book doesn’t work for me until a third of the way through or more, it’s never going to work for me. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the ending is, I’ll just be thinking, that the book didn’t work. A brilliant midpoint or ending is no more a book than a grab-you-by-your-throat opening.