Although I honestly had no idea this whole controversy existed until a year or so ago, apparently posting one star reviews is a little controversial in the book blogging community.  Some bloggers believe that posting one star reviews is part of an honest and open reviewing process.  Others believe one star reviews are a waste of their time or invite unwanted negativity and possibly author attacks.  It really varies blogger-to-blogger.

As my regular readers know, I do post one star reviews.  Sometimes I’ve posted 0.5 star reviews.  Why do I read books I clearly don’t like?  Well, like any sane human being I pick up a book because it’s interesting and I think I’ll like it.  Sometimes the promise of the blurb and the other reviews encourage me to do so only to disappoint me.  When I start a book I don’t like to not finish it.  This is in part because of my natural stubbornness but also my determination to give books a fair review.  If I hate the character in the beginning, maybe they’ll get better.  If the editing is bad in the beginning, maybe it gets better as the novel goes on.  But if I’m honest, it’s mostly stubbornness so I can say that I gave the book an honest try and really didn’t like it.

While it does invite author ire (mostly) in the case of self-published authors, I will continue posting one and 0.5 star reviews if I think it’s a fair rating.  For me it’s part of my honesty-is-best policy.  However, I differ from the book bloggers that give the rest of us a bad name in that I never author-bash or really go crazy on the book bashing.  Still, some people feel that for themselves it is wrong to post one star reviews for a number of reasons.  And that’s absolutely fine by me; it’s their blog after all and it’s totally up to them.

What I want to know now is this: If you’re a blogger, do you post reviews of books you didn’t like?  Do you think it tends to invite author attacks in some cases and thus avoid it or do you have other reasons for not posting negative reviews?  If you’re an author who does reviews, do you post one star reviews or do you just give constructive criticism to your fellow authors in private (if you were requested to read the book)?