Petra X > Status Update

A 3 star review from me doesn't mean it's a negative rating or the book is in any way subpar. It means that I would have had some writing, character or plot related issues with it that had spoiled my overall enjoyment of the book - all of which I would have explained in my review. TBH I get a little anxious with the rating system, I don't think it's flexible enough.

A good question. Some people explain their ratings up front; I haven't. I actually just looked back at a few pages of mine. My average is 3.94. I often read a chapter or two of a book before I put it as currently reading, so potential low scorers are less likely to show up. Five stars are books I really like and will likely read again. Four are books I like and might or might not read again. Three are okay, possibly disappointing in one way or another. Below that, don't waste your time! But I was used to grading graduate students: A = good or better, B = acceptable, C = reassess your career choice.

3 for me means I don’t regret reading the book. I give a lot of 3s.

I don't rate books. A one-to-five scale isn't fine-tuned enough for my comfort.

3 is good, I am happy I read it. 4 is worth thinking/talking about, the author has got it going on. 5 means that if I were Mayor, everyone in the city would be reading it.

If I give a book a 3 star rating it means overall I liked it. It did not totally grab me but I was entertained. It also means if there is a sequel I would pick it up. If I was talking to a friend about the book I would say it was worth a read.

5 is unforgettable. 4 is remarkable. 3 is good. 2 is okay. 1 is I’m surprised I even finished it.

Angela wrote: "It means that I would have had some writing, character or plot related issues with it that had spoiled my overall enjoyment of the book - all of which I would have explained in my review. ..."

That's the best kind of review - about your enjoyment of the book, or lack of it.

For me, it's not about how "good" a book is (whatever that means), but how much I enjoyed it compared to how much I expected to enjoy it. This means a four-star review for a Tana French is very different than the four-star review I gave to "White Trash Zombie".

Honestly, for me, 3 stars is probably the worst thing I can rate a book because it means it has not and probably will not stick with me for any amount of time. It means it is competent and capable, but I could not see its heart. At least with a bad book I will have remembered that I read it because it was bad to certain degrees and I have to warn others to stay away.

What Alexandrea said ^^^^^^, Petra :)

Fred wrote: "I often read a chapter or two of a book before I put it as currently reading, so potential low scorers are less likely to show up. ..."

I do that, but then sometimes the book just slides downhill a couple of chapters later. What were you lecturing in? Finance?

This is similar to a question you asked May 2, 2021, and I still stand by my response then so I’m just going to repost:

My 2.74 average rating reflects my loose adherence to Sturgeon’s Law and bell curves, as the number of times a rating is used should be integral to its definition.

I mostly rate using 3-stars and 2-stars as a rough thumbs up or thumbs down division.

3-stars ~ Books that are above average, giving me general happiness or sparking a few interesting trains of thought. Letter grades: C+, B-, B.

2-stars ~ Average and below books. Just okay. The meh. Letter grades: C, C-, D.

I try to use the rest of the ratings more sparingly so they stand out when I’m looking back on my book lists.

1-star ~ Absolute garbage that either bored me near to death or angered me with its awfulness. DNFs generally go here too, though I rarely stop reading a book even if I despise it -- which is easy to do with all the graphic novels I read since most take only an hour or so. Letter grade: F.

4-stars ~ Two thumbs up to use the Siskel & Ebert scale. A damn good book. Letter grade: B+, A-, A (sometimes).

5 - I absolutely loved it, either because it is a masterpiece, a nostalgic pleasure, or schlock that managed to get a strong emotional reaction from me. If I assign it more than a handful of times a year I am either on an incredibly lucky streak or using it wrong. Letter grade: A (sometimes), A+.

https://www.goodreads.com/user_status...

This is a good question, and a difficult one. 4 stars given to a classic of 800 pages do not mean the same thing as 4 stars given to a sci-fi book with lots of space battles and explosions that you finish in two days :))) But this is more or less how I think: 5 stars - this brought me joy, moved me, made me laugh or cry, was unputdownable; 4 stars - all of the above, but a little something was missing; 3 stars - good effort with too many flaws; 2 stars - awful, I hated it; 1 star (rarely given) - what a waste of time.

Rod wrote: "This is similar to a question you asked May 2, 2021, and I still stand by my response then so I’m just going to repost:.."

You have a better memory than me! I was struck by the article I read saying that the average rating for an Amazon book was 4.3 and that anything under that was saying the book was below average.

Timothy wrote: "3 for me means I don’t regret reading the book. I give a lot of 3s."

What gets a 5?

Well, the whole star system lacks nuance (that's what the review itself is for!), but I have also seen (and tried to resist) the inflationary notion that any book worth anything is a 5-star read. The terms that Goodreads itself suggests are what I try to go by; if I liked a book overall but it didn't seem better than average, that's a 3-star book. If I really liked it but there were one or two flaws I couldn't overlook, that's ****. But if I was deeply impressed by a book, so much so that its flaws faded away in contrast to its positive qualities, if I could legitimately apply the word "amazing" to its impact, then that's a 5.

That said, I do think I've become somewhat easier to impress that way, over the years; I do tend to assign more stars these days. Benefit of the doubt, don't you know. I've also become a lot less likely to bother reviewing a one- or two-star volume at all; most of the books that I bounce off of don't make it into a review at all.

For what that's worth, and your mileage may very well vary; this is just how I use the star system.

APS

I don't have a rigidly defined scale, and I'm not totally consistent (mood in the short-term, but it's probably changed over the years, too). They reflect my enjoyment, rather than an attempt at anything objective:

0* - No rating because DNF. Also, there was one recently that I did finish, and some of the writing was beautiful, but the story itself was so horrific (and, it turned out, with a nasty underlying agenda), that I couldn't rate it.

1* - Irredeemably bad or nasty. I rarely give this, as I'm unlikely to finish such a book, and if I DNF, I don't usually give a rating - but I do still write a review.

2* - Not worth reading, and I almost wish I hadn't (except when it was cathartic to write a critical review).

3*, - Fine, worth reading, but not exceptional.

4* - Very good. Really enjoyed it.

5* - Exceptionally enjoyable. Really special to me.

For favourite authors, I sometimes 4* a book that might otherwise be a 5*, so that I can remember which were my absolute favourites.

I have just seen a review that said Cawpile 8.36 4.5*

I Googled cawpile and discovered this:

CAWPILE is a rating system, an acronym for seven key tenets a reader can use to generate specific, targeted reviews in a consistent way. The letters stand for:
Characters
Atmosphere/Setting
Writing Style
Plot
Intrigue
Logic/Relationships
Enjoyment
You rate each criterion out of ten, then divide by seven to get the average. For GR, you'd then have to divide by two, but that will mean a lot of half stars, so you have the problem of whether to round up or down.

If I were going to do that (and I'm not), I'd include all the component scores in my review.

I have different criteria for fiction and non-fiction books, and different expectations for classics vs modern fiction. My mood and how the book made me feel during and after reading it also influence the rating.

For fiction, I'm interested in a good/enjoyable story that is internally consistent and does not repeatedly shove some political agenda onto the reader. New/interesting concept or interesting characters or world building get extra brownie points.

For non-fiction, the main thing for me is if I learned anything new and how well the author explained the subject. Extra brownie points if the book has relevant graphics. The book gets demoted if DNA is explained as any variation of alphabet soup ladders.

5 stars = I loved this book (even if it has flaws). I stayed up all night to finish it. I will remember the contents for years to come.
4 stars = I like it a lot. It was interesting.
3 stars = The book was good, was enjoyable to read, but could have been improved.
2 stars = the book was ok. I finished it and it wasn't a complete waste of time.
1 star = I did not like/enjoy/get anything useful out of this book. Usually an explanation in the review.

I use the GoodReads scale because that's the platform I'm on when I rate things. Three stars means I liked it, four really liked it and five it was amazing. Personally, I hate the aggregate scores because they're useless. Everything, crap or masterpiece, is in the same 3.5 - 4.5 range. Which is useless for making any kind of determination. If you wanted aggregates that were useful, you'd have a three-star scale because that forces people to make actual choices and the always-low folks would balance the always high folks more exactly. But that's completely counter intuitive even though we have a real-world example of it working very well with the Michelin Star ratings.

3 in my reviews means the book is decent, but there's some flaw that takes it below my average-good, which is 4.

All this "rating scale" stuff is completely esoteric and pointless to me. Here on GR there's a a minimum of one and a maximum of five stars to give. I don't make a pseudo-science out of that but just award a book the completely subjective number of stars I think it deserves between those two points of reference.

As for that site: That really daft statement assumes that the average rating on Amazon represents the objective quality of the book, which is necessarily nonsense as each and every rating - be it one star or five - will always be subjective. As such, the overall average rating both on Amazon and here only reflects the literary taste of the respective audience (neither customers of Amazon nor GRs have been proven to be representative of the world population), the success of the marketing for the book, reader biases, experiences, personal preferences and much more.

Thus, it's entirely pointless a) to explain (or even have) "personal rating scales", b) to try to explain it in one's profile (I'm looking at you, GenZ) and c), worst of all, trying to infer any objective ideas about the quality of a book from star ratings.

What's happening on Amazon with ratings is reflective of what is happening in the world with emotional fragility. "Average" is upgraded to four stars in the same way we give out participation trophies to everyone. To be nice and avoid hurting anyone's feelings. In addition, people don't want to give out dissenting ratings on books that sweep through the Oprah-based market with high accolades--they want to fit in with the trend. Whether the basis of upgrading ratings is being nice, or being popular, it's still illogical to me. Math is math, and on a 5 star scale, 3 is average. Average concept, average writing, average level of enjoyment. Therefore, most of what you read will be average, unless you are doing an above-average job of choosing what to read! As Rod mentioned above, it should be a bell curve.

An interesting question, since not everyone approaches it in the same way. I've found that I do a mental interpretation of some GR friends' star ratings; for example, their 5 equals my 4 or occasional 5, their 4 is my 3 or sometimes 2, and their 3 means don't bother with this book! I actually followed on person on GR because he hates everything. I needed a grinch to balance my glenda-good-witches.

Reviews > stars!

Petra X has made plans! wrote: "Fred wrote: "I often read a chapter or two of a book before I put it as currently reading, so potential low scorers are less likely to show up. ..."

I do that, but then sometimes the book just sli..."

Latin, Greek, occasionally Roman history

Skallagrimsen wrote: "I don't rate books. A one-to-five scale isn't fine-tuned enough for my comfort."

I understand that - you are using GR for yourself primarily. Where I like friends' ratings is because I trust the reviews and ratings of friends and if the book is not reviewed, the rating tells me what they thought of it.

I've always held that five stars is outstanding, four stars is excellent, three stars was worth reading once (with 3.5 signifying a solid effort (assuming I've been given the half-star step option)), two stars is disappointing at some level, one star is that I read this book so you don't have to.

Ratings are hard because I can't compare genres, a great cozy is not the same as a great classic or a paranormal or a thriller etc., or nonfiction for that matter. 3 stars for me definitely means I enjoyed the book overall, it was good. But get it from the library, used bookstore or thrift shop, don't pay full price for this book. Most of what I read are 3 star books. 5 stars is something that is amazing in some way or another. I don't give a lot of 5 stars. 4 is very good. 2 just OK and 1 star- I'm sorry I read it. If I don't finish a book (a rarity) I don't rate it. As many on GR have stated in the past I wish we could give half stars.

I'm actually considering not reviewing books anymore in part because I don't like the 5 star system. I'm a math guy and can't get around the fact that 5 stars feels like a 100%, 4 stars 80% and 3 stars 60%. Hard to justify 100% and 60% seems to low for books that just weren't my thing. I find myself giving 4 stars to a lot of books which vary greatly in how much I like them.

jrendocrine wrote: "3 is good, I am happy I read it. 4 is worth thinking/talking about, the author has got it going on. 5 means that if I were Mayor, everyone in the city would be reading it."

So those are the positive definitions, what about the negative ones?

I am old and I have no patience with the incompetent writing that appears too often in those "almost all of which are freebies." Seriously, do those so-called writers even know what books are supposed to look like?

1* - dreadful, terrible, poorly written, should be removed from publication.
2** - Not very good, but not terrible.
3*** - Decent, no major flaws but some minor ones
4**** - Good, well done, enjoyable. A few minor flaws maybe, but not really enough to notice.
5***** - Superb, flawless or almost so, couldn't put it down.

I am not afraid to give 1-star ratings to badly written books, even those DNFed after a few pages. And I rarely read all of a really badly written book.

I often read the negative reviews -- if there even are any -- after I've already read the book myself. I rarely disagree with the other negative nellies.

Petra X has made plans! wrote: "jrendocrine wrote: "3 is good, I am happy I read it. 4 is worth thinking/talking about, the author has got it going on. 5 means that if I were Mayor, everyone in the city would be reading it."

So ..."

well, 2 i didnt like it and I'll tell you why, but it's possible it's a matter of taste.

1 is a bad book. i am pretty careful about what i read, so somehow i feel that I've been hoodwinked into reading, by puffed up reciews. it might not be the author's fault, but i dont want anyone else to have to spend a second with that book if they are likely to agree with me. it's badly written, embarrassing, idiotic, incorrect, etc.

3 star is my standard rating. Any decent book deserves 3 for the effort the author has put. I may like certain 3 starrers more than others. Plus and minus depends upon how exceptional it is/blew off my mind, or how ridiculous the book is/bad grammar, etc.

jrendocrine wrote: "somehow i feel that I've been hoodwinked into reading, by puffed up reviews. ..."

I think that is close to the purpose of the puffed-up gushing arc reviews that appear months before publication and push the ratings close to 5 star av. Close, because it's sales not reading, that drives those campaigns. Same as every business, authors and publishers are looking for $$.

For me, a 3 stars read is a book that was a fine read. It wasn't bad but it didn't stand out. I enjoyed myself while reading but probably won't remember what I read in a few months. But it definitely isn't a bad rating. In general, my ratings are very subjective and mostly based on enjoyment. My thought when rating a book is just "This feels like an x-star read".

I stopped using star ratings back in 2013 because I felt they were meaningless. Instead I write reviews which convey a lot more about my experience with the book than such a rough tool as star ratings could ever manage. I love the freedom of not being obliged to assign stars. It helps that I never read freebies or arcs so I owe nothing to nobody;-)

Cecily wrote: "CAWPILE is a rating system, an acronym for seven key tenets a reader can use to generate specific, targeted reviews in a consistent way. .."

The problem there for me is that the most important thing about a book is, is it enjoyable? Giving equal weight to 'intrigue' and 'writing style' just misses the point of reading a book to me.
If a book is well-written, got a good plot, good characters, atmosphere etc. but is overlong and doesn't engage the attention it could still get a really high rating even though it wasn't at all a good read. I would have to say that Charles Dickens' books would score high from me on that rating scale, but in reality I absolutely loathe the books.

5 is one among the remarkables, 4 is i've enjoyed it a lot, 3 is good, 2 is not so good, 1 is rubbish.

Jim wrote: "If I give a book a 3 star rating it means overall I liked it. It did not totally grab me but I was entertained. It also means if there is a sequel I would pick it up. If I was talking to a friend a..."

That's the Goodreads scale. Authors don't like it. They feel 3 is a negative rating.

Petra X has made plans! wrote: "That's the Goodreads scale. Authors don't like it. They feel 3 is a negative rating...."

They would rather have readers lie??? Oh, my!

Hey, Petra! I very rarely give 1-star ratings, even twos are not that common, because I often try and steer clear of works widely reviled :D By the way, what are your plans if I may ask? :)

Heart wrote: "They would rather have readers lie??? Oh, my!They would rather have readers lie??? Oh, my!"

They don't see it that way. They see reviews as helping their marketing effort, they don't give away ARCS so people can enjoy reading the books for free. They feel that anything that isn't a 4 or 5 star (well really 5 star) as screwing their ratings and potential sales up.

Petra X has made plans! wrote: "They don't see it that way. They see reviews as helping their marketing effort, they don't..."

Oh, I know. I'm being obnoxious and facetious. My apologies. 💙

Chaitalee wrote: "3 star is my standard rating. Any decent book deserves 3 for the effort the author has put. I may like certain 3 starrers more than others. ..."

That's an interesting way of rating.

I decided long back that I would not give star ratings. According to me it makes no sense to compare the stars of books of different genres, say fantasy fiction and business.

Mimia wrote: "For me, a 3 stars read is a book that was a fine read. It wasn't bad but it didn't stand out. I enjoyed myself while reading but probably won't remember what I read in a few months...."

I thought that was age why I forgot some books so quickly.

Mine can be found in my profile, but here it is:

Rating scale (inspired by Graceful Reader)
5 stars= You touched greatness.
4 stars= You're perfect. Nothing wrong with you, and much good.
3 stars= You were not a waste of time to read.
2 stars= You were lousy, but had one or two redeeming features.
1 stars= Ick. Go away.

If I like things in a book I read, I will rate it highly. This is different from the way I see that most GR reviewers rate: if they dislike things in a book, they give it a low rating. If your rating of a book and mine differ a lot, that may be the reason.

Fionnuala wrote: " I love the freedom of not being obliged to assign stars. ..."

I know what you mean. I do sometimes feel pressure to give a correct rating for a book. But I rely on ratings (from friends) about books to buy for the shop since not all books are reviewed by friends. In the distant past I could more or less rely on everyone's ratings, but with the explosion of promotional freebies, that's gone.

Scott wrote: "I'm actually considering not reviewing books anymore in part because I don't like the 5 star system. I'm a math guy and can't get around the fact that 5 stars feels like a 100%, 4 stars 80% and 3 s..."

I'm also a math person (PhD Applied Math, U Waterloo), but I have no problem with nonlinearity. I consider my star ratings to be no more than a personally idiosyncratic partial order on the set of books I have read.

I am loving all these comments about ratings. I also feel validated about giving a good book a 3 star rating. I've had some people comment on my 3 star rating with condolence type comments, like it was a bad rating.