Sunday, August 14, 2011

In Which I Talk About My Rating System

So all of you know that I rate by books on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being Amazing and 1 being...well, that pretty much means that I won't even finish it and post a review at all, so you'll probably never see any reviews with a 1/5 rating.  You might see some with a 2/5 rating, but most of those are books I was forced to read in school (which somehow always makes me read the most depressing books EVER) so mostly things are 3+ when it comes to books I review.  Originally on the facebook page I just rated it x/5 but since I'm now using a blog and can post graphics with the rating I use these; 
 the dust spirits from the Miyazaki films (My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away) because really, they're so cute!!! (Even if you're a guy you have to admit they're cute!) 

Here I was going to explain my rating system, what a 5/5 means what a 4.5/5 means, and so on and so forth, but then I realized that while I have a rating system with numbers every book is different and every book deserves to be rated on a different scale, and that's sort of what I do.  Book A could be a great paranormal fantasy and book B could be a great contemporary fiction and they could both get a 5/5 but they really aren't the same, are they?  I know there are quite a few people (myself included) who just look at the rating at the end of a blog posts and skim the review that's been written, but I think that it's sometimes really important to read those small little comments that people make in their reviews because as I said I don't think it's possible to grade all books the same way.  So yes, I do rate books, and I've noticed that most of the books I read I give a 5 or a 4 to, but that's because most books that are a 3 or below I don't actually bother finishing because I have so many other books to read, but each rating is individual, which is why I didn't put a general rating system on the side of the blog like other blogs do.

Basically each of my reviews and ratings are unique because every book that I read is unique too, so there is no way for me to make a set system I can use for all the books I own.  Each book review will be as unique as each book is, but I can tell you that my reviews are as honest as I can be based on other books I've read in the genre and possibly the first book (or books) if it happens to be a series (or by the same author or such).

1 comment:

  1. I've only done one 1/5 rating (out of a bajillion reviews) and it was just because I just really disliked the book that much that I felt I needed to vent about it a bit after. I was sooo let down by that book that I couldn't NOT review it! Otherwise I'm like you and most of my reviews average on the 4-5 rating, with the very rare 3 in there. I mean, there are too many books to read to struggle through one you absolutely can't tolerate or despise the characters, ya know?

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