I feel bad for young Heathcliff I really do but it doesn't change the fact that everyone is so unlikeable so far oh my god

I always struggle with this. If I don’t like a book, I either soften my thoughts too much or avoid posting altogether because I feel bad. I never want to tear down authors or hurt anyone’s feelings, but at the same time sometimes a book is just bad or doesn't work for you and that’s okay.

So how do you go about it? How do you phrase criticism in a way that feels fair but not mean?

How do you feel about posting in empty book forums?

How would you feel if a forum have many posts but from the same person? Is it annoying?

I'm reading a book with so little posts in the forum and I feel restricted on -in?- the amount of posts I should make. I don't think it's that much of a problem tbh, I can just do whatever I wanna do as long as its not really too many posts. But I wanna know someone else's opinion on this too.

Seeing as this is a horror starter pack, I feel like Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin would be a great addition to this list.

What do you do when you dnf an advanced reader copy? Do you still review it? Do you let the author know? (If you got it from them directly)

I very easily dnf books, which means I often also dnf ARCs but I kind of feel bad not giving a review when 99% of the time the issue is with me not the book. The book often isn't offensive or badly written, it's just not for me.

Usually I let netgalley/the author/other-website-I-got-the-arc-from know that the book wasn't for me and I won't review it but now I wonder if I should/could write a review but not rate the book so I don't tank the author's rating. 🤔