It's just a personal preference but I don't give books star ratings. It feels weird to me to reduce all the richness of a book down to a number – it feels almost disrespectful in a way. That said, people love rating things and comparing ratings, so I think I might be in a minority here! 🌟
I give stars partly based on quality, partly based on how much I enjoyed a book. Often there's a correlation: a badly written work isn't fun to read. Sometimes I think a book is fun to read, but doesn't have literary quality, e.g. in the case of fantasy. In that case, quality means there's e.g. decent world-building, a good structure, not too many cliches, etc.
I don't have a rigid system, but in general:
- five stars is something really great or enjoyable, something I'd re-read, give to others or recommend to others
- four stars is something I enjoyed but has some flaws, maybe a boring chapter, or something I just thought was a little less original or intellectually stimulating than the five star books
- three stars are books I didn't hate but would never re-read or recommend, I could have lived my life without reading them, but I don't hate that I did
- two stars are books I didn't like, that made me want to stop reading and go clean my house, but at least have some literary value or an interesting plot or nice metaphors, or just historical value
- one star is usually reserved for books I think deserve to be burned and erased from history, either because there's not an original word in it, it's harmful (e.g. in the case of non-fiction containing incorrect medical advice) or it's clear that the book has never been in a ten mile radius of an editor and completely unreadable. These are books I hate, hate, hate and I won't be friends with anyone who likes them.
Your one-star definition is superb! I put Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas in the 1 Star pile and it can molder and rot there forever. I will also never forgive James Patterson for such drivel.
I use a star rating on Goodreads (sigh) and in my reading journal — and they're not always the same. I tend to be slightly more generous on Goodreads by rounding up my half stars because it can be such a harsh place.
When I'm rating, I take into account how the book made me feel and how it fulfilled what I perceive the author's intent to be: It's not fair to judge a spy thriller by the same criteria as a classic. But I'm mostly interested in how much I enjoyed the reading experience, where 'enjoyed' is 'had an emotional reaction and felt like it was worth my time.'
In the back of my reading journal, I made my rating scale, and it goes like this:
Jane Eyre level (i.e., sets the bar for what I love)
5 = best ever/would read again
4 = would recommend
3 = OK/good, would recommend with caveats
2 = not good
1 = made me angry
The Goldfinch level (i.e., I wanted to throw it across the room on the last page.)
I generally don't finish books that I perceive as a 2 or a 1, but sometimes hope keeps me turning the pages, and that is the worst (and usually when I hit Goldfinch level.)
**No offense is meant to people who love The Goldfinch. I think it's very well-written, and I did throw it across the room when I was done. Which makes it, I think, probably a great book, and I also not for me. And that is exactly why star ratings are so fraught.)
😂😂i love that there’s a Goldfinch level. If I had a minus one rating, it would be Cat’s Cradle level. I personally loved The Goldfinch but I could have done without all the scenes about drugs 😅
I LOVED the beginning of The Goldfinch so much. When the action moved to Las Vegas, I was barely holding on, but it seemed like everyone loved that book, and it was so well-reviewed, I kept going, thinking that surely it was going to get better. Nope! Theo just drives himself straight into the ground. And I was SO SAD about how things went down with Hobie. I just found the whole thing too grim. But well done? How do rate a book that's well-crafted but also you kinda hate it? ;-)
I have a system that is a conglomeration of systems I’ve seen other readers use with heavy borrowing from the CAWPILE rating system. I rate four qualities: Character, Atmosphere, Plot/Pacing and (my) Engagement. I assign each quality a 1-4, where 1=nope! 2=meh 3=nice 4=wow! I then add and divide by four for my star rating. (I know, the math is sketchy). I am a a teacher (not math so don’t worry) and in my mind that gives me something roughly equivalent to a letter grade with 4 being an A and 1 being a D (no Fs because just writing and getting a book published is an accomplishment).
I like that you took from the CAWPILE system what was useful to you and left the rest! I bailed on the whole thing - wanted a little less technicality and a
lot more gut feeling in my rating - but I may revisit with the idea to just pick and choose the categories I pay attention to.
When I started to read again I used star ratings to help keep track of my own taste, but many many years on now I don’t like them. When I started writing my newsletter I decided to rate them on a key of how much I’d recommend them to my readers - ‘buy, borrow or bust’. Buy = I really loved this and highly recommend it, ‘borrow’ = I liked this and I’m glad I read it and would still recommend and ‘bust’ I don’t recommend this book based on my experience of reading it. I think it’s vague enough (eg it’s got more ‘room’ per se than the 5 star review scale) and I also think it’s a great communicator to my readers about my taste and likes. I think there is value in giving some sort of scale of ‘rating’ if you have an audience where people look to you for book recommendations and to understand what is good and not so good.
For when I am considering what to rate a book based upon it is usually - my experience reading, the authors intention with the book and then what I think the author did, or did not, achieve. I also like to place books into context - eg was this book written in response or reaction to something? Was it written in a pandemic? How does this affect the art? Ultimately I think ratings can be helpful but it is reductive in lots of ways, there is so much that comes into play when it comes to everything a book can encompass. I try and strike the balance of writing incredibly detailed reviews to analyse the book, while also establishing a familiar rating system to my audience can also use that to help make a decision as to whether they’d like to read it or not.
I try to average my enjoyment and its literary quality. Usually they’re not super different. I’m starting to think that maybe I should actually give a book two ratings and then take a real average instead of just guesstimating based on my feelings.
My most controversial take is probably that 3 stars is not necessarily a bad rating. For example, a three star Emily Henry book was really good. If it’s literary “fluff,” it can never earn more than three stars in my book. But a literary fiction book that was a three star read is usually a bad thing—it means I was disappointed, because lit fic can go all the way to a five if done right.
I agree with this where a 5-star for a “fluff” won’t be equivalent to a 5-star for a lit fic or classic, so I usually consider genres when rating and ask myself, “is it a 5 for its genre?”
I judge books as its own entity, removed from the author’s previous work or other expectations. I do rate them after some time has passed. I let a book simmer all over me before I jump to the next one. I try to consider the book’s cultural relevance or its technical brilliance but still the biggest indicator of my rating is how much I enjoyed reading it.
2 - Disliked. Could not get either pure enjoyment or literary appreciation out of it.
3 - Liked, average, good enough. (Majority of books!)
4 - Really liked! There was something special that set it a little apart from the masses. Will recommend to the right person.
5 - Loved!! Can't stop thinking about or recommending. Personally important.
I tend to give my star-rating immediately after finishing, but have gone back to adjust ratings when I am confused later about why it's so high. Usually that means moving it down from 5 to 4, or from 4 to 3, once I see how the book has stayed with me. I don't rate a book I haven't finished (DNFed).
I also recently introduced an "infinity" rating. Which is reserved for books that I love primarily for nostalgic reasons, typically re-reads of childhood favorites.
I don't use stars just try to convey why I loved a book. I don't review books I don't love or at least like a great deal, because I'm an author and it just hurts too much, plus there's plenty of critics out there.
I have wondered a lot about people's rating systems, so this was fascinating!
Like you Jennifer I don’t have star rating. Partly as not sure really how helpful they are if you don’t really know the person giving the rating how can really judge? I tend to only publish book recommendation I would share with others. If I didn’t think it was good enough to recommend to someone then I don’t publish it as a recommendation.
A couple of years ago, one year there was a thread about making a rating system based on a fandom you’re a part of and so I came up with a #Swiftie system based on lyrics from Taylor Swift’s songs and it still works so I just stuck with it:
⭐️I can't pretend it's OK when it's not it's death by a thousand cuts
⭐️⭐️It isn't love it isn't hate it's just indifference
⭐️⭐️⭐️Well I thought you might be different than the rest I guess you're all the same
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️We found Wonderland you and I got lost in it and we pretended it could last forever
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you
I've been testing a review format that tries to map out someone's "Book DNA" in order to help find similar readers and connect them to books they love. The beta went well and going to roll out the first version in a few months.
First I ask if someone disliked, liked, or loved a book. Then if they liked/loved the book I ask them what they loved most and second most out of a set number of options around things like characters, world, emotions it evoked, etc.
I am hoping that is enough to help identity for them and others other books they might really love. Plus, if they liked the writing style, and what the pace as like.
That is how I think about books when I rate them. IE, I loved this book because of the characters, or writing style, or so on.
I use the trusted Natalie system of Enjoyment x Quality Matrix. Books can land anywhere on the axis of high to low in any combination - the most interesting is of course somewhere at the edges.
I use star ratings in my book journal, but often feel that I’m not as consistent as I’d like in my assessment of a book. I don’t have any books that have received only a 1 or 2 stars in many years. I have learned to discard books that I don’t enjoy more easily than I used to.
It's just a personal preference but I don't give books star ratings. It feels weird to me to reduce all the richness of a book down to a number – it feels almost disrespectful in a way. That said, people love rating things and comparing ratings, so I think I might be in a minority here! 🌟
I'm with you Simon. If I have a rating system it's only 3 categories: Like, didn't like, or meh.
I do like/love/dislike just to try to highlight the ones I love the most and figure out why.
Great system, Simon! I do agree with the rebellion against the quantification of everything. Meanwhile I still use ratings 😂
Haha, I wouldn't even know how to begin to rate a book!
Five stars for inclusion of a dog. Minus five stars if the dog is hurt in any way.
Perfect system!
I give stars partly based on quality, partly based on how much I enjoyed a book. Often there's a correlation: a badly written work isn't fun to read. Sometimes I think a book is fun to read, but doesn't have literary quality, e.g. in the case of fantasy. In that case, quality means there's e.g. decent world-building, a good structure, not too many cliches, etc.
I don't have a rigid system, but in general:
- five stars is something really great or enjoyable, something I'd re-read, give to others or recommend to others
- four stars is something I enjoyed but has some flaws, maybe a boring chapter, or something I just thought was a little less original or intellectually stimulating than the five star books
- three stars are books I didn't hate but would never re-read or recommend, I could have lived my life without reading them, but I don't hate that I did
- two stars are books I didn't like, that made me want to stop reading and go clean my house, but at least have some literary value or an interesting plot or nice metaphors, or just historical value
- one star is usually reserved for books I think deserve to be burned and erased from history, either because there's not an original word in it, it's harmful (e.g. in the case of non-fiction containing incorrect medical advice) or it's clear that the book has never been in a ten mile radius of an editor and completely unreadable. These are books I hate, hate, hate and I won't be friends with anyone who likes them.
Your one-star definition is superb! I put Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas in the 1 Star pile and it can molder and rot there forever. I will also never forgive James Patterson for such drivel.
I use a star rating on Goodreads (sigh) and in my reading journal — and they're not always the same. I tend to be slightly more generous on Goodreads by rounding up my half stars because it can be such a harsh place.
When I'm rating, I take into account how the book made me feel and how it fulfilled what I perceive the author's intent to be: It's not fair to judge a spy thriller by the same criteria as a classic. But I'm mostly interested in how much I enjoyed the reading experience, where 'enjoyed' is 'had an emotional reaction and felt like it was worth my time.'
In the back of my reading journal, I made my rating scale, and it goes like this:
Jane Eyre level (i.e., sets the bar for what I love)
5 = best ever/would read again
4 = would recommend
3 = OK/good, would recommend with caveats
2 = not good
1 = made me angry
The Goldfinch level (i.e., I wanted to throw it across the room on the last page.)
I generally don't finish books that I perceive as a 2 or a 1, but sometimes hope keeps me turning the pages, and that is the worst (and usually when I hit Goldfinch level.)
**No offense is meant to people who love The Goldfinch. I think it's very well-written, and I did throw it across the room when I was done. Which makes it, I think, probably a great book, and I also not for me. And that is exactly why star ratings are so fraught.)
😂😂i love that there’s a Goldfinch level. If I had a minus one rating, it would be Cat’s Cradle level. I personally loved The Goldfinch but I could have done without all the scenes about drugs 😅
I LOVED the beginning of The Goldfinch so much. When the action moved to Las Vegas, I was barely holding on, but it seemed like everyone loved that book, and it was so well-reviewed, I kept going, thinking that surely it was going to get better. Nope! Theo just drives himself straight into the ground. And I was SO SAD about how things went down with Hobie. I just found the whole thing too grim. But well done? How do rate a book that's well-crafted but also you kinda hate it? ;-)
I have a friend who is still mad about the Goldfinch! ahahahahah
SAME!!! :-)
I have a system that is a conglomeration of systems I’ve seen other readers use with heavy borrowing from the CAWPILE rating system. I rate four qualities: Character, Atmosphere, Plot/Pacing and (my) Engagement. I assign each quality a 1-4, where 1=nope! 2=meh 3=nice 4=wow! I then add and divide by four for my star rating. (I know, the math is sketchy). I am a a teacher (not math so don’t worry) and in my mind that gives me something roughly equivalent to a letter grade with 4 being an A and 1 being a D (no Fs because just writing and getting a book published is an accomplishment).
I like that you took from the CAWPILE system what was useful to you and left the rest! I bailed on the whole thing - wanted a little less technicality and a
lot more gut feeling in my rating - but I may revisit with the idea to just pick and choose the categories I pay attention to.
“Gut feeling” is how I ended up with wow, nice, meh and nope 😂. CAWPILE did feel like a lot.
I use CAWPILE when I want to make sure I’m being fair to a book I didn’t like
When I started to read again I used star ratings to help keep track of my own taste, but many many years on now I don’t like them. When I started writing my newsletter I decided to rate them on a key of how much I’d recommend them to my readers - ‘buy, borrow or bust’. Buy = I really loved this and highly recommend it, ‘borrow’ = I liked this and I’m glad I read it and would still recommend and ‘bust’ I don’t recommend this book based on my experience of reading it. I think it’s vague enough (eg it’s got more ‘room’ per se than the 5 star review scale) and I also think it’s a great communicator to my readers about my taste and likes. I think there is value in giving some sort of scale of ‘rating’ if you have an audience where people look to you for book recommendations and to understand what is good and not so good.
For when I am considering what to rate a book based upon it is usually - my experience reading, the authors intention with the book and then what I think the author did, or did not, achieve. I also like to place books into context - eg was this book written in response or reaction to something? Was it written in a pandemic? How does this affect the art? Ultimately I think ratings can be helpful but it is reductive in lots of ways, there is so much that comes into play when it comes to everything a book can encompass. I try and strike the balance of writing incredibly detailed reviews to analyse the book, while also establishing a familiar rating system to my audience can also use that to help make a decision as to whether they’d like to read it or not.
Goodreads having half-star options is the bookish hill I'll fight and die on!
I try to average my enjoyment and its literary quality. Usually they’re not super different. I’m starting to think that maybe I should actually give a book two ratings and then take a real average instead of just guesstimating based on my feelings.
My most controversial take is probably that 3 stars is not necessarily a bad rating. For example, a three star Emily Henry book was really good. If it’s literary “fluff,” it can never earn more than three stars in my book. But a literary fiction book that was a three star read is usually a bad thing—it means I was disappointed, because lit fic can go all the way to a five if done right.
This is a great definition of 3 stars.
Thank you!!
I agree with this where a 5-star for a “fluff” won’t be equivalent to a 5-star for a lit fic or classic, so I usually consider genres when rating and ask myself, “is it a 5 for its genre?”
I put a one-word summary and a score of 1 to 10 on the inside pages of the book.
I judge books as its own entity, removed from the author’s previous work or other expectations. I do rate them after some time has passed. I let a book simmer all over me before I jump to the next one. I try to consider the book’s cultural relevance or its technical brilliance but still the biggest indicator of my rating is how much I enjoyed reading it.
My personal star-rating system is:
1 - Actively hated. Had a big problem with it.
2 - Disliked. Could not get either pure enjoyment or literary appreciation out of it.
3 - Liked, average, good enough. (Majority of books!)
4 - Really liked! There was something special that set it a little apart from the masses. Will recommend to the right person.
5 - Loved!! Can't stop thinking about or recommending. Personally important.
I tend to give my star-rating immediately after finishing, but have gone back to adjust ratings when I am confused later about why it's so high. Usually that means moving it down from 5 to 4, or from 4 to 3, once I see how the book has stayed with me. I don't rate a book I haven't finished (DNFed).
I also recently introduced an "infinity" rating. Which is reserved for books that I love primarily for nostalgic reasons, typically re-reads of childhood favorites.
I don't use stars just try to convey why I loved a book. I don't review books I don't love or at least like a great deal, because I'm an author and it just hurts too much, plus there's plenty of critics out there.
I have wondered a lot about people's rating systems, so this was fascinating!
Like you Jennifer I don’t have star rating. Partly as not sure really how helpful they are if you don’t really know the person giving the rating how can really judge? I tend to only publish book recommendation I would share with others. If I didn’t think it was good enough to recommend to someone then I don’t publish it as a recommendation.
Exactly my reasoning. Ratings are not something I would include in a recommendation to a friend.
Exactly! If I like and recommend it to them I say why I thought they would like it or mention another book I know they read and is similar.
A couple of years ago, one year there was a thread about making a rating system based on a fandom you’re a part of and so I came up with a #Swiftie system based on lyrics from Taylor Swift’s songs and it still works so I just stuck with it:
⭐️I can't pretend it's OK when it's not it's death by a thousand cuts
⭐️⭐️It isn't love it isn't hate it's just indifference
⭐️⭐️⭐️Well I thought you might be different than the rest I guess you're all the same
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️We found Wonderland you and I got lost in it and we pretended it could last forever
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you
I've been testing a review format that tries to map out someone's "Book DNA" in order to help find similar readers and connect them to books they love. The beta went well and going to roll out the first version in a few months.
First I ask if someone disliked, liked, or loved a book. Then if they liked/loved the book I ask them what they loved most and second most out of a set number of options around things like characters, world, emotions it evoked, etc.
I am hoping that is enough to help identity for them and others other books they might really love. Plus, if they liked the writing style, and what the pace as like.
That is how I think about books when I rate them. IE, I loved this book because of the characters, or writing style, or so on.
I use the trusted Natalie system of Enjoyment x Quality Matrix. Books can land anywhere on the axis of high to low in any combination - the most interesting is of course somewhere at the edges.
I use star ratings in my book journal, but often feel that I’m not as consistent as I’d like in my assessment of a book. I don’t have any books that have received only a 1 or 2 stars in many years. I have learned to discard books that I don’t enjoy more easily than I used to.