Rating books on Goodreads.

As an author having first hand experience of the obstacles and ordeals of putting a book together, I find it unfair, even a violation, to rate anything with only one star. A novelist, totally immersed and wholly invested in his or her writing would have gone through too much pain birthing the project that it wouldn't be right to be shot down just like that.

If I don't like it, I'd keep the opinion to myself. But more often it's not that I don't like it but more I can't relate to it. The minimum rating I would give any book is two stars - it was ok - but this is because I could not put myself in the author's, perhaps self-indulgent, shoes rather than the fact that his or her writing is bad.

No writing is bad if it was painstakingly crafted, though it may lack skill, which can be improved over time. Writers lay their soul bear, and to be ripped and raped by words is something we may have to get used to.