Book Review: What do you do when a book is bad?

[Shaun]

I need some advice from folks. I've ask two people here personally and I've posted a similar question elsewhere to my fellow blogging reviewers and I'm still not sure what to do. Here is the story:
I do reviews for big publishing houses, small presses, and I have recently agreed to take on self-published authors under the assumption that I will treat their work like professional work (so, I won't treat them any different than a book published by Tor, Pyr, Solaris, Orbit, or a bunch of other big speculative fiction publishers, nor any different than small presses).
So, I received a few self-pubbed books and one of them looked really promising. The cover was gorgeous (must have cost a fortune for the art), the book was put together really well, and it even came with promotional materials. I was looking forward to it.
Then I started reading it...after 29 pages I stopped. I couldn't go on. The main character was beyond annoying and the narration was terrible. The MC would randomly go off on these tangents, like internal monologue, babbling about science, theology, philosophy, and whatever else that sounds somewhat intelligent, in such a manner that not only pulled me right out of the story, but also made me hate the character (and he's supposed to be the good guy). Add in the author's constant breaking away into random bits of information about the MC's past--in the middle of action, mind you--and the overly cliche, and obviously so, storyline of "the chosen one" and "destiny" and old, antiquated language like something out of a classic fantasy book from the early days and it was just too much.
I tried to like this book, but after 29 pages, I put it down. I hated it. Everything you could do wrong in writing a novel was done in those 29 pages.

My dilemma is that I don't know what to do as far as reviewing it. Generally speaking, if you don't finish a book, you don't review it (some do, some don't, and those that do think it a good idea just to let people know why they couldn't finish a book). I'm on the fence. As a rule, I don't review books I can't finish, but this is the second time this has happened to me, and the first book I dropped had very little to do with the writing and the mistakes were not really as bad (that book made mistakes and I did drop it, but I got halfway through the 400 page book before I did because of a couple logical inconsistencies that were too much for me...unlike this book that I dropped at 29 pages because I just didn't care about what happened anymore). With this book, however, I feel like it needs to be brought to the front.

So a part of me thinks I should just review it and explain why I couldn't finish it. Rumor has it that the author doesn't like negative reviews (someone else reviewed the guy's book after stopping at 100 pages and the author got upset). That part of me thinks that while it would suck to make him feel bad, if he can't take the criticism, then he shouldn't be writing in the first place.
The other part of me feel that I shouldn't review the book because I didn't finish it. Granted, if I reviewed it, it wouldn't be a full review, but still. Some have suggested I tell the author why I can finish the book and offer to send it back. This would be the nice approach to things, but would it be the right thing?

So, what do you all think I should do? Should I just review it and explain why I couldn't get through it and deal with the author potentially having a fit? Or should I not review it because I couldn't finish it? I would like your honest opinions.

[Tsuki]

Probably go ahead and tell him.
Honesty is normally the best thing even in these situations.

If he can't take it, say it nicely, but get what you're trying to say across. That's really all I have to offer.

[Starry]

I'd say, take a break from it, then come back and see if you can get a little further. Read as much as you possibly can, so you can have more evidence on your side when you say why you didn't like it. And who knows, it may get a little better.

[Tsuki]

Even if it does eventually get bettter, how many people are likely to sit there and read on if the main character is as annoying as Shaun says?
I would've already put it down as he did.

[Starry]

Even if it does eventually get bettter, how many people are likely to sit there and read on if the main character is as annoying as Shaun says?
I would've already put it down as he did.

Well, maybe it's justthe beginning that needs massive work. I know in my story, Estara is so repulsively arrogant in the beginning that most people refuse to keep reading. But if you do get past the first chapter, it gets so much better. Whenever I go back and edit, I know I'm really going to need help on that particular part, but that doesn't make the rest awful.

That being said, I know there's a strong possibility that the rest of the story sucks too. If that's so, if you read further you'll have more evidence to back you up when the author starts arguing with you.

[Tsuki]

It still seems unlikely that the people in general are going to look ahead and give it a chance if the beginning is just horrible.
I can see what you're saying, because in your story, had it not been for the younger brother and sister, I wouldn't have read anymore.

Shaun, were the other characters any good?

[Shaun]

Well, if it helps you two, I've skipped ahead to see if the character continues babbling like this for the rest of the book...and yes, the character still does the things that annoy me as far as the last 50 pages of the book.
I tried getting through the second chapter and I just couldn't take the character. There aren't any other characters whose heads we get in, so all we have is the MC, who constantly starts babbling about stuff that isn't even important to the story. And he talks to himself too. He doesn't just do thoughts, he'll just randomly start talking about things liek "oh, well look, there's a tree, but what it is doing here?".
I can't read any more of it. The writing is terrible. The character is annoying, and I just don't care. If I don't care about your character that far into the book, something is wrong. Coming back to it later isn't going to change this because the MC is just annoying as hell. And it stays that way throughout the book.
That and the story is REALLY cliche. It's everything overdone in fantasy packed into a small book.

This is a big problem. If I drop a book after only 29 pages...I'm not going to read it again.

[Tsuki]

Okay, you should probably tell the guy then if it's that bad.
That'd be best.

[Nyx]

Just be honest. Tell the guy you couldn't finish it and why, and then yea, offer to send it back.

[Shukara]

Well, if you have the book in hand, I simply finish it then chuck it across the room into a wall. I did that with Harry Potter book 6. I read the entire thing first though. You have to at least understand the entire story so you know why you didn't like it and can say you dislike it with good reason.