Do you rate/review books you didn't finish?

[davidmwpowers]

As an author of hundreds of publications and around a dozen books, an editor for a major publisher (books and journals), and a professor of linguistics, I always aim to be instructive and constructive. Still, I have quite a few times failed to finish a book and still provided a review and a rating. Exactly what I have done depends on the precise situation but I do always aim to explain where I got up to, why I didn't finish it, and why I am giving it the rating I do - which is not always one star.

One situation is where it is an ARC or other assigned/bid review, and I or the author/publisher can select that the review is not made public but only goes to the author/publisher. I am under no obligation to spend my valuable time (perhaps $1000-worth for novel-length books) finishing a book that does not suit my tastes or is not up to scratch. If the issue is not to my taste, I might give a mid-level rating and explain why I didn't like the book and which readers it may and may not be suitable for. If the issue is the writing, it is likely to get one or two stars - one star if the book is supposedly professionally published and/or edited or by an established author, but aiming to be lenient and helpful to inexperienced authors. Note that I won't be pedantic about formatting, spelling or grammar issues/preferences in an ADVANCED Review Copy since these are by definition not the final edit and not formatted as the actual publication (which may indeed be in a totally different format, e.g. ePub vs single- or double-spaced PDF). My job is to review the story as presented.

More generally, the same principles pertain for published/bought/borrowed books, and I do want to warn readers who will not like the book, help the inexperienced authors, and send a message to the editor/publisher. In particular, I have quite broad tastes and read a lot, and I am particularly disappointed when big name authors or publishers serve up tripe. When I am pointing out problems, I feel it is reprehensible, unhelpful and dishonest to be vague and just say there were lots of problems. It is important to make clear whether they were with the plot, the structure, the characters, the spelling/grammar/idiom/register or the publishing/genre conventions - and give specific examples. But reviewers are not editors or proofreaders - it is not our job to identify all the examples, which can run to thousands. Our job is to review the story as presented.

I have received reviews claiming there were many factual errors, spelling errors or grammatical errors where no examples were given and I couldn't find one (nor my reading/proofing team). I have received reviews where the objections amounted to me not following US/Webster spelling or (the highly deprecated, often ill-advised and somewhat out of date) Chicago Manual of Style — the New York Times Style Manual is much better, although I myself follow modern British conventions. Plus, as a reviewer, I try not to be petty about mere matters of convention where I have a different preference and house style (this includes matters related to punctuation, quotation and indentation).

Unfortunately many so-called professional editors/proofreaders actually introduce errors (e.g. always writing 'Someone and I' even in contexts that should be accusative: 'us' not 'we'). The issues of grammar can be particularly tricky when we have dialogue or inner thought where a character may use poor grammar. But the narrator shouldn't, and authors, editors and publishers should be illustrating good practice rather than bad, particularly in books for Children, Middle Graders and Young Adults. Word and Grammarly can also introduce errors (there was one international student where I kept correcting the same errors in draft after draft and it turned out she was using Grammarly, which put them back in).

Ironically my team developed, and published on, the first system for grammatically-sensitive spelling correction, implemented for MS Word (and Microsoft quizzed me closely about it at the conference talk, sometime last century). The state of the art has improved considerably since then but is far from perfect, and the latest GPT technologies often get things wrong too.

[Anaïs Quesson]

Nop. It's really rare though, I always try to push through to the end, even if it has to be a one star rating.
But rating if I didn't even try to finish seems unfair for the author, I don't know. I prefer pushing through and leaving a complete review of why I didn't like it, rather than not even bothering and leaving one star anyway.

I've created a dnf shelf on my Goodreads, so I can keep track of the books I've never finished -and they don't go in my Read shelf.

[Susann Heidy Castro Garnica]

I try not to, but I only do it if I hated the book so much that I have to say something to get it out of my system. If I'm stopping because the book is boring, then I won't rate it because that would be a form of disrespecting the rest of the book. I find that the book is not for me in that point in time, maybe if I try again after a few months of years, things might be different; I know this because it happened before when I wasn't emotionally mature enough to enjoy "Patriot Games" by Tom Clancy.

[Kristine Mariel Diaz]

I can't write a review until I've finished the whole book, because I feel like something might happen in the last few pages and make me change my mind completely.
And this has only happened to me a few times, but I always have the feeling that there is a plot in every story.

[Jacob Mamman]

No I don't, I only review books I finish reading to give better insights about the book. And I think it would be harsh on the author to review thier book without finishing it.

[EnclosedReviewer]

No, I don't rate or review books I didn't finish. It wouldn't be fair or accurate to judge a book without experiencing the whole story. It's like trying to review a movie without watching the ending – you might miss important details that could change your opinion.

[Jabril Miller]

I would rate a book that I didn't finish provided that the reason I didn't was because the story was poor (which is the predominant reason I wouldn't do so to begin with). From that perspective, the fact that I didn't finish the book is a rating itself, so I may as well garner my honest opinion.

[Tommy Mayengbam]

I don't, and I find it unfair to do so. I'm guilty of abandoning books halfway, but never have I ever rated an unfinished book.

The middle and end are as crucial as the beginning, and it's unjust to judge or even rate a book that I haven't completed.

If I haven't experienced it entirely, I believe I don't have the right to assign a rating.

[Abdelazizhaggag]

Yes, but it has to do with the weakness. I don't do a whole lot of online reviewing, so I'll answer from the perspective of playing Devil's advocate for these other reviewers

[Alissa Nesson]

I would never review a book I didn’t finish, but at least they said they didn’t finish it, I suppose. If I hate a book so much that I can’t finish it, that’s fine, but I do feel like it’s unfair to review it if I didn’t read the whole thing.

[Kristin Cowan]

If I don't finish a book, it is because I couldn't get into it; I relay this in the reviews.

[Pranav Dewangan]

I would never rate a book that I have not read. I would not destroy the reputation of my fellow writer.

[Tomy Chandrafrost]

I feel it's better to finish the book before writing a review. There's a moral and social responsibility I feel when I'm about to review a book, as my writing could influence someone's reading interest.

[Charmaine Mahlangu]

No hey , I do not . I would have limited information to share on my review and I'm not such a good liar .

[Lissethe_H]

I have also seen it many times and I don't like it, especially when the reason is not specified. Personally, when I rarely decide to abandon a book I have my mental critique and I leave it there because I don't think it's fair. Although I often wonder if the ending was good and more often than not I force myself to finish it haha.