I’m trying to get better at logging and reviewing books so that I can keep better track of my own ideas and interests(there’s nothing worse than knowing that I read a book but having no idea when I read it or what it was about). In the process I’m also relying more on websites like Goodreads and StoryGraph to find new books to read.
And I’m finding the 5-star system that they both use to be very limiting, when all books are judged by the same merit. Consider these scenarios.
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A classic work of text which wasn’t even novelized until much later (such as epic mythology or plays). It doesn’t follow the conventions of a novel or modern ideas about story structure and character development and many characters have outdated or foreign-seeming moral codes.
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A novel that uses modern, experimental storytelling conventions and is designed to make the reader uncomfortable.
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A story which closely follows genre conventions and is an enjoyable but predictable read.
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A children’s book.
Because the expectations of those four examples are so different, how would I even judge all of them on the same scale? How do you? How do you get around this, when reviewing or looking for literature to read?
by almostb
6 Comments
I write a few sentences about what I thought, if there were any sections or ideas that really stuck out, maybe a quote. And I don’t give a rating at all.
Just going by stars strips all context from a rating, which ultimately makes it pretty useless imo. I think the hyper focus on star ratings is always going to be a failing battle and you should focus on reading/writing reviews that explain with words why the book is good or bad. It’s honestly not that uncommon I come across a 2/3 star rating, but the written review makes the book sound fantastic to me.
A cheesy popcorn novel that delivers exactly what I want and I have no notes for? I don’t see why I shouldn’t rate that 5 stars. The most profound piece of literature that will stick with me forever? Also 5 stars.
Reviews are always going to be subjective and most people have their own system for how they rate.
For me I do the following:
1 star: DNF
2 star: Forced myself to finish / didn’t enjoy
3 star: Enjoyable
4 star: loved it!
5 star: I will be rereading it
Personally I’ve found it’s worked better to find accounts that have similar tastes to me and follow them (especially on TikTok).
You are correct that trying to rank multi-dimensional things on a linear scale is ridiculous – see I.Q., “best of” lists, who’s the best-looking person in my school?, etc.
Ignore it.
I don’t put too much stock in reviews. I’ll pick a book based on the synopsis. Maybe I’ll look at the 3 star reviews, as they always seem like the most fair.
But…
I rate based on how the book made me feel. Someone may give a book 2 stars because of poor plot and character development. But if I had fun reading it, I can overlook some flaws and give that same book 4 stars.
Are you reviewing for yourself or an audience?
If you are reviewing for yourself, you can just mentally track the idea that context inflects your ratings. For a kids book this is a 4. In the context of classic lit, that is a 5. In terms of genre fiction, the book is a 3. You know the rating scale is subjective, you just have to remember it’s subjective. They aren’t actually the same scale, but are abstracted to the same scale.
If you are reviewing for an audience, you make the implicit into the explicit. In the yext, mention that you are rating the book in context of its niche and that it shouldn’t be taken as an equivalent to a book of the same rating in another niche. Remind people that ratings are a subjective abstraction.