I've mentioned BookCrossing a couple of times now, it is a site which I respect and adore the idea of.
I read the forums from time to time, not intensively - I flick through the Announcements to see if there's anything interesting there, browse Bookrings, Bookrays, and Bookboxes to see if there are any rings or rays I would be interested in joining and read a bit of Site Watch for amusement value.

A couple of weeks ago, I was rather bored and took a look at all of the forums - on one of which I noticed a thread posted by a new author trying to get her recently published first book out into the world. She was offering to send a copy of her book to anyone wishing to read it and release it into the wild.

I thought that was a pretty cool idea so I sent her a message saying that I would happily accept a copy of her novel to release here in Australia. She is - understandably - very excited about the publication of her book and was thrilled to be sending out copies around the world, and so responded with great enthusiasm.

I received the book last week and thought it was fairly exciting to be able to read a book that is fairly hot off the press, for no expense on my part AND I get to set it free!

Now here is the difficult part... I read the book today... and it is crap. The beginning is crap, the ending is crap and pretty much all of the middle is crap. 251 pages of fluffy crap.

I can't really leave a journal entry for this book saying "it was crap - now i will release it" .. I would feel bad. What makes it worse is that another BookCrosser read the book last week and has left a glowing review - thought-provoking, insightful - all of those kind of things. Well I'm afraid I didn't find it at all thought-provoking or insightful, it was just crap.

Here is the draft of my journal entry - I think I will sit on it awhile, I don't want to lie but I don't want to seem too harsh either :-

There were a few parts of the story that tugged at my heartstrings, but overall it was really not my cup of tea and not a writing stle that really grabbed my attention. I found the first chapter to be particularly disjointed, however the continuity did improve.

I wish (the author) luck with the success of this and future books, thank you for allowing me the privilege of receiving the book to release here in Australia.

I was going to email Mrs Hardly and ask for advice, but instead I might just send her the book and see what she thinks hehe :o)