When you’re asked to rate your feelings about something, are you the type of person to gravitate toward the middle, or do you tend to the extremes? We each tend to approach these types of questions differently, and yet when a large enough group is sampled, we get fairly meaningful averages.
I’ve been rating books on a scale of 1 to 5 for years now, first on goodreads, and more recently on my own blog, but what do I mean? I’ll be honest with you — the answer has changed over time.
At first, I saved the coveted 5-star review for books that were not only excellent, but somehow deeply meaningful. Books that were merely extremely good for their type, but were essentially fluff, got only 4 stars.
In the last year or two, I began to realize the unfairness of such a system. If a book is an absolutely wonderful mystery that kept me hanging until the end, even if it did no more than offer me a challenging puzzle, then why not give it 5 stars? Or if a book is a captivating romance, that had my heart thumping with anticipation, why not give it 5 stars? Honestly, these books represent far more of my reading choices than the more profound books, the ones that change my view of the world in some way. So maybe it becomes a challenge to discuss books like Middlesex, which I recently acknowledged needed a different dimension of rating altogether, but generally speaking, books should be rated based on how well they do what they are attempting to do.
My view of the detestable 1-star review has not changed: I hate giving them out, but I do it anyway. I’m sure not all of you feel the same way, and you’re welcome to call me a softy, though perhaps my distaste has more to do with the fact that I, too, am an author whose books are not universally loved. But when I click that lowest of all possible ratings, I can’t help but think that someone must like it, and that maybe I’ve missed the point, or that I’m simply not in the target audience, or…mostly, I think that I’d hate to hurt the author’s feelings. I hope I don’t. I hope they realize that not everyone will love every book, and accept my opinion as just that — an opinion. I’ve even given 1-star reviews to some of my favorite authors: Orson Scott Card and Catherine Anderson, for example. I love them both, especially Mr. Card, whose writing advice to me has been invaluable, but a couple of his books really didn’t work for me at all.
But here’s the thing: It is my opinion. I give it freely, in part to recommend certain books and discourage others, but also as a reflection of myself. This is what I like. This is what I don’t like. Talk to me, share your opinions, and maybe we can become friends. Or at least respectful adversaries. 🙂
This is also why I don’t just rate, but leave reviews. Because it’s not just about a number, which can only say so much, it’s about a thousand little things that are far more meaningful.
So, to summarize, on a scale of 1 to 5…
1: AWFUL! I probably didn’t finish it, and if I did, the experience was painful. I at least skimmed heavily. Something in it truly repulsed me, not just bored me. I do not recommend.
2: Not good. I probably finished it, but was unmoved, bored, or annoyed. Perhaps the characters fell flat.
3: The most difficult rating to define. This can either mean a book that I was perfectly neutral about, finding it a decent way to pass the time but little more, or else it can mean a book with both positive and negative attributes that cancelled one another out.
4. I liked it. Maybe I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed it immensely and definitely recommend.
5. Yes! Read this! This is among the best ____ (type of book). Great book.