What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

It is super fun to read books written by my friends. One of my writer friends is one of my favorites. Every book I read of hers is great! On the flip side, there are other books that I've read written by friends that have had good plot but have needed work in other areas. These books are stressful for me to read, especially because I know that I'm going to have to report back to someone that I didn't like a lot of the elements of the book they spent years writing. I just went through this today, as I forced myself to finish reading a book that I was really not enjoying and then spent an hour or more writing up my thoughts. I basically spent the whole day doing this. Of course, I have plenty of other things I'd like to be doing. And my friend probably won't be happy with my response. After thinking about this and talking to ChatGPT, I've decided that I won't beta-read any other first books. Writers who have written more than one book are more likely to be less emotional about the feedback from beta reading and are probably better at crafting a story and characters. I am not well enough to handle a lot of emotions, so I think this is a good balance between refusing any beta-reading and agreeing to do it for whoever asks.