I've been wondering about this a lot lately, do you review every book you read?
For me, I do. It's become a habit for me. It doesn't matter if it's a book I bought, a library book or a review book, I review every single book I read. I feel like it's my duty to. Afterall, I created this book blog to share my love of reading with others and voice my opinions on the books I have read and I've been doing this for almost two years. To be completely honest, it has become slightly tedious. I can't remember when last I read a book just for pleasure, without reviewing it afterwards, without making endless notes and spending lots of time on formatting the review and typing it up.
There have been lots of times where I want to only review the books that I have received to review and books I have a very strong opinion on (whether it be that I loved it or hated it) but then I end up reviewing them anyway. I feel like I have to . I'd feel guilty if I didn't. I want to share my opinions with you guys but sometimes I don't feel up to writing a review on that book. I also feel bad when I see comments on my book hauls saying that they can't wait to see my opinion on the book, which makes me feel like I need to review it. Does anyone else have this predicament?
I also feel like I am expected to write these really well -written reviews. Publishers and authors see my reviews and as much as I would love to write fangirling, gushing reviews with an explosion of gifs, I have to hold back because I need my reviews to be professional. My reviews I write are extremely long, in depth reviews and it gets quite tiring after a while if I'm reading book after book after book, but I want my reviews to be the best quality that they can be. Sometimes I think, why do I even write such long reviews when it seems like nobody is even reading them? It's really upsetting knowing that I've spent all my time on these reviews and sometimes I don't even get a single comment on it. I know this happens to all book bloggers and that's why I always try to leave a comment on a post I have read. Just so that the blogger knows that someone has taken time to read their post.
Reviewing every book also really slows down my reading. I need to make notes for every book I read, format the blog post, type it up, promote it and doing that can sometimes take me a day and then I've lost a whole day of reading because I have been so busy reviewing the previous book. I have this rule, where I will not start the next book until my review for the previous book has been completed.
I find that this process is seriously depleting my love of reading and blogging and I don't want that to happen. Since I was 6 I have been a complete bookaholic and I can't remember a time of my life where I haven't loved reading and I don't want this to feel like work, because it isn't! It's a hobby. One that I love.
So I really need your opinions! Do you review every book you read? If you do, do you find it hard? If not, how does it work for you?