Booking Through Thursday: Honesty

I receive a lot of review books, but I have never once told lies about the book just because I got a free copy of it. However, some authors seem to feel that if they send you a copy of their book for free, you should give it a positive review.

Do you think reviewers are obligated to put up a good review of a book, even if they don’t like it? Have we come to a point where reviewers *need* to put up disclaimers to (hopefully) save themselves from being harassed by unhappy authors who get negative reviews?
– BTT, 20 November 2008

I review books here in my own blog, and also for the e-zine All Things Girl, where we post reviews in the blog, and in the actual zine. We try to always find something positive to say, but it we really dislike something, or felt a work was flawed, we’ll say so.

Here at Bibliotica (which was founded in 2004, but I recently purged the archives), I don’t do lengthy reviews, but if I dislike something, I’m not shy about it. Of course authors and publishers prefer positive reviews, but as readers, and many times as writers ourselves, we do them a disservice if we don’t give fair, honest reviews.

For more answers to this question, visit Booking Through Thursday