Reviewing a book that you disagree with strongly

I have a ‘friend’ who is a local author. We know each other because she works for the local newspaper and has done some articles on me and my horses. Because we are both authors we’ve kept in touch.

She sent me one of her books and I struggled through it. The content is very critical race theory based and woke. Her writing itself is good. So I agreed to be on her arc team for the new books she is releasing. I thought maybe she had some variety in the things she wrote about.

The second sentence in the new book started in on how evil white people are and I knew I’d made a mistake. Apparently she really does only have one subject.

But now I’m on the arc team and expected to leave a review.

My problem is, I hate the book, unless it improves drastically from what it is in the first chapters. I hate lying, but I also hate to alienate a local book friend who, very selfishly, is useful to get articles out in the local paper through and who knows what other sorts of collaboration if I can stand being connected to her.

I could leave a good review under my real name not my pen name. Give the five stars and just say that her writing is good, not that the book is good. Be polite but not have it connected to my books.

I could try to decide which honor I’d rather besmirch. Is it worse to lie or to not leave the expected, requested review?

I could make an enemy and leave an honest review.

I’m spending more time than is deserved worrying about this. It’s stupid. But it’s still stuck in my head.