agonizing over reviews

You probably know that a large portion of my blogging is reviewing books. (I do that over at Christian Chick's Thoughts.) Most of the time, it's pretty easy. Time consuming, but easy. Even when I come across a book I don't love, I can usually find something redemptive about it and can focus on that while still being honest about what I didn't like.

But tonight, I'm struggling.

I just finished a book that, in all honesty, I hated. I only read beyond the first 20 pages because I'd agreed to review it.

Let's take a glance at my notes, shall we?

commas! where they shouldn't be and not where they should be

misplaced modifiers

Gag me! Too sappy!

25 year old male skipping over to his mentor? Evokes a different image than intended.

too flowery

Of course, I was a little kinder in my review. I'm not even going to tell you what book it is, though if you jump over to my book review blog, you can probably figure it out.

Sometimes it's hard to be both honest and kind, but I'm really trying.

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I wrote this prior to writing the review of the book, but I wanted to hold off on publishing this post until after that particular book tour was over on the off chance the book's author would visit Christian Chick's Thoughts to see the review and then follow the link over to this blog. (I'm guessing he did read my review, but I doubt he got any farther than that.) You know, the whole spirit of kindness. 

The problem? I think the review ultimately was a lot heavier on honesty than kindness. I know there's a balance to be struck, but I don't think, at least in this case, I did it successfully.