The rule of the thumb I use is that I read all ten books of Elron Hubbard’s Mission Earth series and the complete Legends of Dune trilogy, so it takes a book to monumentally suck for me to give up before the end. Although interestingly, it may be worth discussing if bloggers, who rarely have less than a dozen books on the stack waiting to be read, are perhaps a little too easy to give up on books knowing they could be wasting time that could be more gainfully spent reading something better?

Or how would Gardens of the Moon fare in this blogging climate. That’s a book that some people insist you cannot ‘fairly’ evaluate until you’ve read at least the next two books in the series and maybe Ian Esslemont’s Night of Knives as well. Interesting.

On the other hand, I don’t really understand why you chose to put the book down. Pain in the ass or not, a load of crap or not, I read the book that I agreed to review from the first to the last page. Partly, it’s because that’s a habit of mine (with all books, not just those I get from publishers), but partly it’s because I feel a kind of obligation to the author or/and the publisher who send me the book. There was that book that really got on my nerves, but I tried and tried and it took four attempts for me to actually read it through, but I did manage to do it and I found out that the last part was kinda saving the whole thing from being totally horrible. It’s not always like this, I know, but still I think that you should always at least try to get through a book you agreed to review. But I confess, if it weren’t for the author, I’d put it down immediately, habit or not.

About writing a review or not … well, imo, that’s your choice. I don’t think you’re in any way deceiving your readers if you decide not to write a certain review. I do that sometimes, mostly when I can’t really put my finger on what exactly is bothering me, or when I feel I didn’t really understand the book at all (for example, Dick’s works left me completely puzzled and I did not feel competent to write a review). Sometimes, I just don’t feel like it, for no particular reason, but mostly it happens when the books are average and there is little I can say about them. It happens. And if you do want to write a certain review, but are in doubt, just do it, but be honest and try to point out ups as well as downs. I guess there can’t be much wrong with a review like that.

Your honest assessment is that you don’t like the book enough to finish it…that’s info you should share. Sugarcoating your impression does no one any good. I appreciate the honesty. Keep it real!

Yeah, some themes may not fully develop until the end of the novel, but it is the author’s job to make sure the reader can get there. The pay-off should be at the end, but if the reader doesn’t care, the author failed.

Mostly.

A solid evaluation of why Aidan or Ken or Gabe or I could not finish a book is just as valuable as a review of a book I could finish. Sometimes I’d argue that it is MORE valuable to do this sort of review because it can pinpoint fatal flaws in a work, or I can recognize that what didn’t work for Aidan also don’t work for me (or the flip, that I could disagree with everything Aidan says and I’d then know I want to get the book).

Now, if you want to get into semantics, I’ll generally title my “review” of an unfinished book “Why I Couldn’t Finish….” because it isn’t the same sort of review as when I finish a book and because I’m trying to get at a particular explanation of why I couldn’t finish the book. Semantics aside, it’s still a review.

The reason I said “mostly” in terms of a readers not finishing a book being the writer’s fault is that sometimes the reader isn’t ripe (or is overripe) to read that particular book at that particular time.

Second, your review of Savage Messiah was terrific, I can certainly see why it’s one of your favourites!

Of course, I also wrote a review of a book I didn’t read at all, so the mileage of my opinion might be suspect.

This is a bit like saying that an editor can’t make a judgement without reading the entire novel. The story is only one factor in what makes a novel works and you don’t need to make it to the end to know about style, them as a story teller, characterisation, and all the other bits that make any story worth reading. It didn’t work for Aiden and he explained why.

It’s a review in my book.

You can see some of my thoughts (and several other bloggers) HERE.

Short answer: I don’t think an ARC is any sort of payment, and it certainly shouldn’t imbue the blogger/reviewer with any sort of loyalty or feeling of obligation towards the publisher. I’ve paid for many of the novels I’ve reviewed. ARCs are simply a tool to do our job (albeit they are also a nice perk.)

Keep it up, everyone. I may not be responding to everything, but I’m certainly following it all with rapt attention.

Sure, there’s a level of casualness about some of these reviews, and I think that’s great. But, at the same time, there are serious consequences to any review or opinion given by someone who has earned a level of respect by his/her readers. At least, they’re serious to the author. Meaning that if someone dumps on my book and that causes people not to read it, well, that’s pretty serious, given all the work I put into writing it. And if it’s a glowing review, and it helps bring more readers, that is also something I would take seriously.

And I think we need to start taking the connotation of “just” out from in front of “semantics.” Certainly, it’s never good to go overboard, but I think it’s silly to think that the meaning of the words we use is not important. I mean, for pete’s sake, we deal in words, here, people, don’t we? What we mean by what we say is pretty darn important.

I think the point that Paul was trying to make was: say what you want to say, just do it professionally and fairly. It’s simply not fair-minded to present an opinion as a “review” when one hasn’t even read the (whole) book. Regardless of how well-written, and even partly-complimentary it is.

I know that some people think this is nitpicking, but I (obviously) disagree, or I wouldn’t be taking the time to be a part of this discussion.

And for the record, and I just can’t help myself, I think that some people’s reactions to Paul’s initial comment are leaning a little too close to unwarranted condescension. I, for one, agree with his comment, 100 percent. I understand where it comes from, and while it might not be wise for an author to comment about a bad review, this wasn’t that situation. He was annoyed by an unfair treatment of his book (by calling something a review that wasn’t one). Again, like the book (or portion) or don’t like it, but at least treat it fairly, meaning in the proper context. No, one isn’t “obligated” to do so, but my whole point is that doing so is beneficial to everyone involved.

For me, when I posted my not-review, I did say I couldn’t call it a true review since I didn’t read the whole book and I didn’t attach a rating as I would for a review. I suppose that it is unfair to compare an opinion of part of a book with that of a whole book, but it really is all just opions of books.