After having written several reviews now, I realized that my previous rating system just didn’t quite cut it. Apparently it is one thing to think, internally, that there aren’t that many slots to categorize books, but another entirely to be able to clearly define those slots when writing about them. There are way more gray areas than I’d believed. Because of that, I’ve decided to adjust my ratings to a more standardized form that, hopefully, will make it a bit more clear.
My previous rating scale and reasoning can be found here. The new one isn’t a whole lot different, but it gives a bit more wiggle room that I felt I needed and didn’t have with some of my previous reviews. I won’t go back and change any existing reviews, but all new reviews will follow the new system.
A 5 star rating is reserved for my absolute favorites. I will absolutely be willing to spend the money to buy this book. This type of book is one that I will read multiple times, has such great content that I find myself so absorbed in the story that I’m incredibly disappointed when the book is over because I want more. The books that receive a 5 star review will be few and far in between because there just aren’t that many books that speak to me on that level.
4 star books are really good; excellent story/characters/world, but just miss the mark of falling into the favorites category. There is a good chance that I might read it again if I didn’t have something more interesting in my To Read list. It would definitely be something I’d recommend to others if asked.
3 star books are good, but not great. I enjoyed it, didn’t feel like it was a waste of time, but more than likely won’t take the time to read it again. They may have mostly decent writing, but often one major aspect seems weak or not well thought out or fully developed. I might read other books by the same author or in the series when I’m looking for something to read, but don’t have something more anticipated or interesting on my list. A lot of the time they are the type that seem like a replay of every other storyline out there. Cookie cutter writers eventually fall into this category, no matter how much I may have liked the first book or so. There are only so many times you can read the same story with only slightly different characters/scenarios before it gets really old.
2 star books are books that I didn’t particularly like. They are usually books that just weren’t for me, now matter how well written they may have been. Sometimes quality of writing alone will drop a book down to the 2 level, even if the story concept was good. There are only so many flaws a story can have before a reader loses interest.
1 star ratings are not ratings that I hand out often. These are those that I seriously question every single person involved in the process because that book was BAD. Bad story, horrid characters, no way was there any editing involved, or any combination of those things. An awful lot of times, these are the books that I may get a few chapters into and cannot force myself to attempt to plow through another sentence and are absolute and total garbage. I really hate using the last term for these books as I don’t like to slam anyone, but there really just isn’t a nice way of saying it when a book is actually that bad.
TJ Fox: Sharing the Experience 