Does that mean I shouldn’t write anymore DNF reviews?

No! (1) They’re entertaining and (2) they’re honest. I don’t trust sites that only have glowing reviews because they defy the law of averages.

Nope, Janine, we are peons in the reviewing ladder so I think it is fair to say we get to make up our own rules.

Yeah, since we’re not on a salary for the reviewing we do here, it does seem stringent to me to ask that we hold ourselves to these standards. I try to be ethical by acknowledging upfront that I haven’t finished the books I give DNFs to, that Sherry Thomas is my friend and I’m acknowledged in her book, and that I’ve sometimes read other reviews of the books I’ve reviewed before reviewing them (I often link to them in the body of the review, too!).

68.5 percent of book reviewers think anyone mentioned in a book’s acknowledgements should be barred from reviewing it.

Double damn. I’m pretty sure I’m mentioned in the acknowledgements for Sherry Thomas’s Private Arrangements.

40.1 percent think a reviewer shouldn’t read other reviews of a book before writing his or her own, but 17.9 per cent think that’s perfectly okay, and 33.5 per cent feel it’s complicated enough to require commentary rather than a firm answer.

I do this, too. And here I thought I was an ethical person!

and you shouldn’t review a book without reading the whole thing.

Damn. Does that mean I shouldn’t write anymore DNF reviews? Because most of the books I would otherwise grade a C- or lower I simply don’t finish.