Whenever I see a Kindle book for free, I pick it up. I have a library of unread books on my phone, but I will get to them all eventually. It takes a while because I only read them when I'm on lunch at work (I don't want to soil the pages of a book with my crumby fingers, so I use my clean pinky to swipe at the screen) or when I'm waiting at a doctor's office or something along those lines. But I feel it's important that when I pick up those books, I leave an honest review. That is the unspoken cost of a free Kindle book, and I never want to ignore that.
So now I come to a quandary because I'm currently reading a really, really bad Kindle book. Whatever you're imagining, it's waaaaaaay worse than that. I don't really want to leave a review because it could only be harmful, but at the same time I don't want to shirk my responsibility.
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It occurs to me that a few of you reading this might think I'm talking about you. Don't worry. I'm not. I'm not naming the author, but I'm 99.9% certain I don't know this person, and this person doesn't know me.
Anyway, I thought maybe a wishy-washy way to get out of it and still complete my duty would be to leave a one star review and say that it didn't do it for me. But a part of me feels that it's not fair.
What I really want to do is leave constructive criticism. Because I get the feeling that this is the author's first book. Or, possibly, the author is a teenager who doesn't know what they're doing yet. There is a statement at the front of the book about how the author wants to become a better writer, so why not offer my assistance?
Except I've been told that when I give writing advice, I can be very abrasive. I swear I don't mean it that way. I try to be as nice as possible, but for some reason, almost every time, that person tells me I'm being a dick. Considering how I have a somewhat known name in the writing community, it would probably look like I was punching down. That wouldn't be my intention, but I feel certain that would be how it would be taken.
I'm probably going to finish the book during my lunch break on Saturday, so I have that long to figure out what I'm going to do. I could just not finish it and delete it from my Kindle library and pretend I never saw it, but that would be the coward's way. I'll probably figure something out. Maybe.
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