Booking Through Thursday-- Authors You Know

This week's question from "Booking Through Thursday" is:

If someone you know has just published a book—do you feel obliged to buy a copy? Even if it’s not the kind of book you’d normally read?

I don't feel obligated to purchase it but I do feel obligated to offer myself up as a reviewer. The few author's I know write ebooks and I only, for the most part prefer to buy books in hard copy. It’s not only the wrong format for me, I also can’t spend as much money as I want to on books. And, believe me, the only thing I want to do is spend money on books. I have to reign it in sometime. It’s hard, though. I feel that if I know them I can’t say no to being a reviewer, even if I don’t want to, because giving a bad review is hard, especially when you know the author.

Answering this review has made me reconsider reviewing books for authors that I know. It’s too hard to make my review unbiased and when I feel obligated to do something I feel like I have to do it asap, which can be stressful, considering I’m a full time student with a job. I will, however, keep editing their books (for monies).