Book reviews are the cod liver oil of the writing world. Writers need them, and they can do an awful lot of good, but they can also leave an incredibly nasty taste in the mouth.
You can’t switch on the Internet these days without seeing an author giving out about book reviews and how unfair/mean/reprehensible/soul-destroying they are. There is always a writer whinging somewhere about the tears they shed over a nasty review, how personal it was, and why so-and-so was out to destroy them.
Now, for some writers of the thinner skinned variety, this might mean a review which says something unforgiveable such as “I didn’t like this book“. For others, it might take a little more venom. Such as an anonymous review which says “I would have used this book for toilet paper, but my soft under bits would have rejected it too.”
So, I got to thinking. If…
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Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
A friend just asked me why I complimented all the books I talked about in my blog.
I told him that they are books I really enjoy reading.
I also confessed to him that I was not sure if I should (or could) talk about books I did not like. I don’t think that I have the heart or the gut to tell people about how much I dislike a book.
My friend said that bad reviews are as useful as the good ones. It saves the readers from buying “bad” books.
(by bad books, he did not mean the topics. He thought some books had interesting ideas but they were so badly written)
What do you think?
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As long as you stick to reviewing the book, giving reasons why you didn’t rate it more, stay polite and not criticize the author, you’ll be OK Hari – your friend is correct 🙂
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I think I will try it. I happen to have just finished a book which I liked enough to finish it (but I did not like it that much that I wanted to blog about it).
I will try to write a review about it (might not post it later – I’ll do it as a writing exercise)
😀
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Good luck with it Hari – you’re wide awake and its now time for me to go to sleep LOL Night night from UK 😀
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