In my last blog post, I talked about how BookTube is superior to ratings and reviews, and I stand by that! But it got me to thinking. I mentioned that my rating system may not match up with yours, and then I started wondering, what exactly is my rating system? I thought about that for a few days, and I thought I knew what it was. I thought it was a pretty solid system, and I thought I had been using the same system all along.
And then I looked at the list of books I’ve read on Goodreads and looked at the ratings, and I realized that I either don’t have a system at all, or the system I thought I had has changed over time. Or maybe it’s that my tastes have changed over time? I suspect it’s a combination of those last two. Either way, it made me realize that I can’t even trust MY OWN rating system! How in the world could I trust someone else’s system?
But, be that as it may, if you’re interested, I think my current system is something like this:
My Rating System
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – I absolutely loved this book, I have read it multiple times, and I will almost certainly read it again.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ – I really loved this book but I probably will not read it again because there are too many NEW books to read!
⭐⭐⭐ – I enjoyed this book, it was a solid read, I recommend it!
⭐⭐ – This book was ok. Maybe parts of it were even enjoyable, but it wasn’t good enough, or there were too many problems with it for me to recommend it to others. I do recognize, however, that there are people who would probably really love it.
⭐ – I was either not able to finish this book, or I finished it but I disliked it. I will never give a book two stars if the reason I didn’t finish it or didn’t like it is merely due to it not fitting with the kind of books I like to read. However, if I find something distasteful, offensive, or if the book is badly written / badly researched I very well might give it only 1 star.
And after putting it down on paper, I feel like maybe it’s not a fair system. I mean, just because I may not read something again, does that mean it’s not a five star book? I also definitely know that based on some of the books I read many years ago and gave five stars to, I didn’t always use this system. I used to give five stars to a lot of books that I know I won’t read again. Maybe it’s time for me to change back to that system? Who knows? Not me.
But now I’m curious – what’s your system? Do you even have a system? Let me know in the comments!
Melissa L. Freeman - Author 