Fringe Fiction Unlimited discussion

Assuming you finish most the books you read, do you write reviews for every one of them? After you finish do you immediately think "now I have to write my review so people know how I feel about this book"? Also besides wanting to let people to know how you feel about the book is there another reason you review it such as you like writing them or do it because you know authors appreciate it when you do?

What do you do and what's your take on it?

I try to review every book (if not here at least on Amazon.)
I don't particularly like to write reviews. In fact I plain hate it. Seriously. But I know it's the right thing to do for the author and the readers.

Most of the books I read, I always review. No, I don't like writing reviews. But I don't mind writing them, if that makes sense.

Less than 15%. Yeah, I suck.

Before joining Goodreads, I never wrote any reviews. Now I do it because I know authors appreciate it.. but I still don't write enough of them.

Don't worry Alexis I am right there with you. I know I should write more reviews but when you can finish a 300 page book in a matter of hours and then move onto the next one it gets to be a lot and they start to run together. If I wrote a review for every book I read I would never get anything else done! LOL! I do need to write more reviews because I appreciate every review I get and I know other authors do too.

I write a review for every book I finish, now that I am an author, and know how much they have the potebtial to help.

If I don't like a book and it doesn't have many reviews, I won't review it. Being an author myself, I know how difficult that can be and I don't want to do that to a fellow author.

I have a hard enough time reading a book as it is so when I do finish it you bet I write a review on it. I write reviews because I want people to know my thoughts, my writing a review may influence someone else to read it, it's the right thing to do and finally I'm an author so I know I'd want someone to leave a review on my books so I pay it forward in a way.

I never used to leave reviews. It was right there with filling out a Kohl's or Taco Bell store survey. Not really high on my priority list. But I have to say that now I feel very differently. If I'm reading a book by an indie author and I know I can honestly leave a truthful, pretty good review for them I make time to do so. It's just too darn hard to write a book and put it out there for others and not get a little encouragement here and there to live off of. I know most authors (including myself) love to see how their book impacted another. It seems almost wrong now to think good thoughts and tuck them away.

Now, I have a few books from well established, big publishing house authors that I'm still kicking the tires on. But I hope to one day sit down and write reviews on those too. At the very least, I always rate them.

Please keep writing reviews, especially if they're nice ones. We authors live off them. :-) They keep us going.

Well said Lynne!

I try to write reviews for all the books I read. At first, if I didn't like a book, I wouldn't write one, but someone mentioned that a constructive review helps them to decide whether or not she would read it. That she would like to know if there are a lot of "F" bombs or explicit sex in them; if you found it boring, why?

I would appreciate it if I read such reviews. I can't tell you how many times I've started to read a book and just couldn't get through it. If someone had written a constructive review of what they liked or didn't like about it, I probably never would have picked it up.

And it's hard for me to write a review about an author friend whose book I just couldn't finish, though.

As for other books, I try to say in a nice, honest way, why I didn't like the book to help others decide.

Well said Groovy

Very good advice, Groovy. Usually for me, I always sample a book to know if the writing is worthy. I won't ever drop a comment about currently reading a book until I know it's got me involved. But there have been times where books made a sudden or even subtle turn, and I'm like...I so didn't expect that in this book! Sometimes they go down a path that I just don't feel like following. But then I'll think in my head, the writing is good, I'm sure other people totally love this.

But you're right, had someone marked it as unexpected strong content, I would have been saved several hours of reading.

I will have to work on being braver, while not losing kindness. I'm ridiculously bad at stuff like that. I once ordered a cheeseburger, was handed a chicken sandwich, and was like..."Oh well, I don't want to get anyone in trouble." Dang it, I love my cheeseburgers!

Thanks, Justin and Amie.

LOL! Amie, You're just the non-confrontational type--don't want to stir the waters. I understand:)

I do, mostly because well I enjoy it. It kinda helps me to realize how i really felt about the book. Like I begin to think, well if I was asked about this book from a friend how would I describe it?
Well if I liked it, I'd think about how I'd explain why I'd like it, and I'll stumble upon ideas about it I didn't really outright think but were there nonetheless. If any of that makes sense?
And if i didn't like it, well I feel like it's a nice way to vent about a book (in a professional manner, I don't like slamming books) and moving onto the next one.

I only review books I like after reading them twice, with only rare exceptions