While I don't personally state how many stars I'm giving a book in the review itself (on the blog review), I do give star ratings that can be found in other places (GoodReads, NetGalley, my own spreadsheet). Star ratings by their very nature can have some drama attached now and then. Today I thought I would seek to give my perspective on the question: Who are star ratings for?
Authors. I would imagine that star ratings would be very important to authors. The higher the average of stars a book has, the more appealing it might be to potential readers--so the theory goes. Yet. I can't personally get caught up in an author's feelings and reactions when I am rating a book. Why? Because if every single book received five stars--all books past, all books present, all books future--then the five star rating would become useless to me and to a lesser extent useless to others as well. Giving out five stars rating no matter what, always, always, always, would be hypocritical and unfair.
Readers who have read the book. One of the first things that I personally do after I've read and reviewed the book is to go on GoodReads and read other reviews. I love reading across the ratings. I will purposefully seek out reviews from all five ratings--one star, two stars, three stars, four stars, five stars. I will actually read reviews and take into account other perspectives and views. I hardly ever change my own view or change my rating of a book based on another's opinion. But I like seeing how others who have actually read the book reacted and responded to the book. ON occasion I read a review and I am like DID WE READ THE SAME BOOK???? How can our points of view be so different when the words on the page were the same??? But at the same time that's part of the fun of it: READING IS SO SUBJECTIVE. Cookie cutter opinions are not what I would expect or desire. GoodReads does allow you to sort by star rating.
Readers who have NOT read the book. When a book has come to my attention--perhaps it's on sale on Amazon, perhaps it's on order at the library, perhaps I've read a review on another blog, perhaps it's an author I've always meant to read but haven't yet--I will go and seek out reviews. Again I will read reviews from all five ratings. I don't just look for the five stars. I don't automatically read three or four five star reviews and go THIS IS THE BOOK FOR ME. I AM GOING TO LOVE IT SO, SO, MUCH. That's not how I approach ratings OR reviews. I look for clues in the reviews. You can sense which ones are "real" and which ones are "fake." And by real I mean people who have read the book and thought about it. And by fake I mean people who haven't read the book and are just looking for drama. I don't mean the "real" ones are the ones that agree with me and the "fake" ones are the ones that I disagree with. Again, you don't have to agree about a book to tell that a person has actually read it, thought about it, lived with the book.
I have found one star reviews helpful; two stars reviews helpful; three stars reviews helpful; four stars reviews helpful; five stars reviews helpful. I look beyond ratings to the content of the review. Which, for me, is KEY to all of this. Knowing YOURSELF and recognizing in reviews things that will indicate if the book is for you and not for you.
Last but not least, MYSELF. I rate books for myself. I need all the help I can get differentiating the books I read. When you factor in 100+ books each year and multiple the years--no DECADES--that you've been reading, the ratings go a long way. True story, sometimes I have to look at GoodReads to see if I've read a book or not. I can have zero memory of reading it. Yet GoodReads can tell me, YES, you read it and you rated it 3 stars. That isn't the only reason. I do a fairly decent job remembering which books I've read in the past six to twelve months. It is helpful with best of lists and nominating books. I know not everyone creates a favorite reads of the year post--I love doing it. And I know not everyone nominates books for the Cybils....(which is for children's books and young adult books)....but I do.
At the end of the day what I'm asking of myself and what I'm asking of others is one thing: HONESTY and AUTHENTICITY in rating. Telling me honestly, genuinely, authentically what your gut response is to a book in terms of STARS. I find that more helpful than the generic EVERY BOOK GETS 5 STARS NO MATTER WHAT approach. And I hope that authors can get that. For five stars to mean something truly special--this reader truly thought my book was great, amazing, wonderful, fantastic--it has to be sincere.
1 comment:
I 100% agree with this and do the same thing. My regret is that I did not keep good records of the books I read the first few years on Goodreads. I will also forget if I have read a book and go back and see if I have. But, I have been an avid reader all my life, so yea, 1000's of books are not recorded. I do love to see how other people rate books and why. Thanks for sharing this post.
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