Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

“Why do you give such high ratings to all the books you review?”

It’s a fair question, and not the first time I’ve been asked. The answer is simple. I don’t review books I know I won’t like. That doesn’t mean I only accept them from a particular genre, but rather that I triage the ones I read. If I can tell right away that I won’t like it, I don’t accept it for a review. If I get a few chapters into it and realize my review will be under three stars, I tell the author. (Not one has ever asked that I go ahead with the review.)

I was adding a review to Goodreads recently for a book that had almost all five-star reviews and noticed there was one reviewer who only gave it two stars. I was curious, so I looked at that review. The reviewer…