Tag Archives: sad

I’m sorry. I like you, I just didn’t like your book.

Posted on September 22, 2012 | 34 comments

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I read a book by a friend of mine, and I just didn’t like it.

Was there anything wrong with her writing? No, not really. It was just a disappointing read for me. So, what did I do? I finished it, and I moved on to something else, kept my mouth shut, and I didn’t do a book review.

At one point, in a forum we are both on, she said, referring to me finishing her novel: “I guess no news is good news, yikes”. Well, there was no actual question asked in the statement, so again, I kept my mouth shut. I thought I had ducked the bullet.

Today she sent me a private message. (Almost a month later) She asked me if I hated it. My heart sank. What the heck do you say? I don’t want to lie. It’s not that it’s a bad book. It was traditionally published, so someone had to think it was good, and it had a few good reviews. I just happened to agree with the bad ones. I would have given the book three stars if I’d reviewed it, but in doing this, I felt like I would have to list the things that I didn’t like.

I have a policy not to review books I don’t like at all. (Although some would say I’m lethal even when I do like a book 🙂 )

The way I figure it — It doesn’t help the author any to bring their rating down because I didn’t care for it. That’s why you have only seen four star reviews so far. The stuff that I haven’t liked, I’ve set aside (except for that one I reviewed without giving the author’s name or book title)

So now, I’m stewing, and writing a blog post about it. I need to say something to her by tonight.