I signed up to do RiverMoose’s June & July ARC TBR Takedown Read-A-Thon. Each week, there’s an optional blog topic to tackle. I didn’t “officially” do the first one (June 1st: What ARCs do you currently have? + Top Ten Most Anticipated To Read Arcs), as my TTT post for that week covered it fairly well.
June 8th: What do you do when you have to DNF or negatively review an arc?
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever not finished an ARC. I feel like when I signed up for the ARC I committed to finish it. Also, I’ve written about this before but I am not really a book quitter. I rarely do not finish a book I’ve started, even if it’s a long journey for me to get to the end.
I do feel bad if I’ve gotten an ARC and I don’t like it, but I try to be honest in my review. I like to let the person reading my review know what didn’t work for me (and what I did like). And just because I didn’t like the book doesn’t mean everyone won’t like it. I always feel terrible writing a negative review because I hate to hurt an author’s feelings, but at the same time I want to be honest. It’s a fine line to be honest but not hurtful, and I do my best there.
I definitely have gotten better about requesting books that I know are up my alley. I am more selective in my requests in a genre I usually don’t read, as I don’t want to read something I don’t enjoy and leave a negative review for the author.
One of the reasons that I love books is that there is something for everyone out there, and we don’t all have to love the same genres to share our love reading. Which is what makes books and our book blogging community amazing!
Hidden Staircase 
This was such an interesting post! I too find it really difficult to post a negative review if I didn’t like a review book.
Megan @ http://wanderingsofabookbird.blogspot.co.uk/
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Great post! Cool that your doing the Read-A-Thon discussions!
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I love this topic because I like to hear how bloggers handle this. I don’t like to post a negative review, especially if I’ve received the request directly from the author, but I do feel I need to be honest on my blog. Like you I try to call out any positives and try to explain why I personally disliked something but others might feel differently. I also try to be very selective, sometimes reading a chapter first if that’s an option before I accept the book. Also, if I know early on that a book’s not for me, I choose not to finish it, and then I don’t write a review.
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I’ve gotten more careful about requesting too. Early on it’s so easy to want everything but it’s not quite so fun when you’re facing a stack of books you don’t really want to read. I have given ARCs a negative or DNF review but my main focus like you said is talking about the why the book didn’t work for me instead of just dismissing it as a bad book.
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