You don’t have to pretend to like bad books, but there’s no need to talk about them, either. It‘s not helpful or constructive to say “your book sucked”, it just makes authors feel sad.

I have seen people actually advocate for not leaving negative reviews because it hurts the author’s feelings and it could hurt sales. Ok?

Well said.

I had no idea this was a thing, but the last novel I read overwhelmed me with its "so close and yet so far" aspect, which was one of the reasons I shared my review on Threads. The amount of Goodreads members who don't give ratings to memoirs or autobiography "on principle" is why we are drowning in so much flat-out awful writing. toxic positivity