Sexual Content--A Reviewer's Dilemma

As a reader/reviewer, one of the conflicts that presents itself for me, from time-to-time, is when a book contains more sexual references or descriptions of sex than I am comfortable with. It's not a difficult rating choice when the book offers this type of content and not much else. I avoid reading this type of book, in general.

The issue becomes more complex for me, however, when a story is a good one, overall, but also has sexual content that is more prominent, and, in my view, adds nothing to the story in terms of the characters and their life journey or situation. The question becomes one of fairness to the author in reviewing the title, without letting my personal feeling about descriptions of sex overshadow the good things the book has to offer.

I am still in the process of figuring out how best to resolve this dichotomy to my satisfaction. I cannot give a title a five star rating when the content is not something that appeals to me. So, when I come across this content, I will mention it in a note to the reader. I think doing so is both a courtesy to the reader and the author. The reader is made aware, and can easily choose whether or not the book is a good fit for them, and the author may also benefit from such a notation. Readers uncomfortable with such content can choose not to read the book, and likely will not provide a negative rating based on sexual content and sexual descriptions, alone.

This entire problem could be so easily avoided if such content was noted in a book's description. Sadly, that is not always the case.