Review Etiquette: Should You Review a Book You DNF’d?
This is the first in a series about good reviewing etiquette. In the various spheres of book social media there have been many heated debates about how reviewers ought to approach a book. The conversation tends to pit authors against readers, especially readers who engage in review-based content creation (that’s me!). I’d like to explore this conversation and why it becomes so heated. In this post we’ll focus on a common point of contention: Should you review a book that you didn’t finish reading?
The arguments against reviewing a book you did not finish are often simple enough. The problems you have with the book may be addressed in a satisfying and rewarding way later in the book. Some books are terrible slogs right up until the very end. A sudden twist or revelation recontextualizes the entire experience and in an instant the bad becomes brilliant. How then can you offer an opinion on a story you haven’t fully read?
What does it mean to have “read” a “book”? In the year of our lord 2025, there are a lot of books. Many, if not most of them, do not contain a complete story with a beginning middle and end. Must you read all three books of my beloved Lord of the Rings before you can offer any opinion on the material that constitutes Fellowship of the Ring? Of course not, Fellowship of the Ring is packaged as a discrete unit. Not only is it appropriate to review this product as it has been packaged, it is encouraged. If everyone were to withhold their review until they had the completed story, the marketing and sales of books 1 and 2 would suffer a huge blow while waiting for book 3. Does it matter that Tolkien never wanted to split the story into three discrete volumes? Does it matter that this packaging has nothing to do with artistic intent and was purely a logistical necessity for the publisher? Well, no. It doesn’t matter. The economic reality is that book 1 must succeed before book 2 can be published. And every platform for reviewing books reflects that economic reality. There is no good way to rate and review something at a series level on most platforms. I’m aware it can be done, but it is clear from the user experience that this is not preferred by the platforms, the authors, or the audience for the reviews.
One argument I can foresee is that it might be considered “fair play” to review part of a story if the author agreed to packaging it in parts. Since the author decided to sell you part 1 of a story, you are well within your rights to review that part of the story. This is where we may run into a bit of an ideological split among reviewers. Many passionate book reviewers are also book writers. Why, I myself have even dabbled in the craft. If you write books as well as review them then you’ll inevitably start to see other authors as colleagues. Writing a book, even a terrible book, is actually really hard. It looks easy. I thought it would be easy. I thought I’d write the story and click “publish” like I do with these blog posts. No, my friends. If you’re serious about this, there is round after round of editing, formatting, marketing…it never ends. Reviewers who are sensitive to the struggle often choose to say nothing at all about a book unless they have something nice to say. Even if they will risk a less-than-stellar review, they certainly feel that they need to give the author every chance to succeed. I respect and understand this approach, but it is not my approach.
I believe that middling and even negative reviews are a good and necessary thing. I don’t get a kick out of hurting people’s feelings. That is not my goal. Though I will admit to and apologize for occasionally getting a little out of pocket in the moment during a podcast. I’m sure Ernest Cline is a nice man. But at the end of the day, I don’t review things to help authors promote their work. While I have immensely enjoyed talking with all the authors who have reached out over the years, even the ones who yell at me, I don’t do this for them. I review things because I enjoy thinking and talking about the things I read. I think it’s important to discuss what you don’t like as much as I think it’s important to discuss what you do like. I think respectful feedback, positive or negative, is generally better than radio silence. But reviews aren’t author feedback. Reviews are for readers to discuss what they read and to help other readers determine if a book is for them.
Now we reach a controversial point.
How much time should one be expected to spend inhaling the toxic fumes of a dumpster fire before they can reasonably conclude that it is never going to become a fulfilling experience? The average reader can complete the average novel in about 6-8 hours of dedicated reading time. I don’t believe it’s reasonable to insist that someone must dedicate 8 hours of their life to an unpleasant, unfulfilling experience before they are permitted to offer comment on it. A person who engages with a text in good faith and sees no light at the end of the tunnel by page 300 is not likely to find it on page 600. If a book is riddled with repetition, grammar mistakes, and spelling errors, are we supposed to naively assume there is something at the end that is going to make it all make sense? There are many examples where a reader will have seen enough to reasonably conclude that what they have read is representative of what lies ahead.
TL;DR
In summary, books are often only one part of a larger narrative and yet we are encouraged to review them without the full context. It is not easy to write or publish a book, and authors are financially punished for bad reviews. As a kindness to authors, reviewers may choose to never leave bad reviews or they may try to give the author every chance to earn a good review by never giving up on a book early. But reviews do not exist for the sole purpose of helping authors sell their books. Readers may find negative reviews, even DNF reviews may help a reader to know if a book is for them or not.
With these points in mind, is it good review etiquette to rate and review a book you didn’t finish? I think the answer must be “yes.” I don’t believe we should be stifling discussion about books simply because it will harm the book’s performance in algorithms. The trade off is that it should be a discussion. I don’t believe that “1 star, DNF” is a good review. The reviewer should make it clear that they did not finish the book. If possible, they should make it clear how much of the book they read and they should be very specific about why they gave up. All of that is valuable information for both authors and fellow readers.
And yes, I did write all of this to justify my reviewing The Infernal City by Greg Keyes on the podcast despite skimming about half of it.
