I don’t really have a review “policy,” but a couple of days ago I was explaining to my wife why I wasn’t going to review it — i.e. my role is to find gems, not trash books no one ever heard of anyway — when I realized I could get a blog post out of it.

If the book had actually had something to say — more common with non-fiction than of novels — and I disagreed strongly, then I might have given it a negative review.

Basically, I’m not going to take the time to review a book unless it’s a relatively obscure book that I like, or if I think it’s dangerously wrong.

I also wrote the publicist to explain why I wasn’t reviewing it, but I merely said that I didn’t like it and that she wouldn’t want me to review it. She wrote back to thank me for slogging through to the end.

I don’t have a review policy, and if I actually had something to say about that book I’d have happily written a negative review. (As I would have if I thought there were reasons to discourage prospective readers.) But my for a book that doesn’t inspire any interesting thoughts or even any anger or outrage? Nah.