I’ve been thinking about book reviews and book ratings…
When you’re reviewing a book on Goodreads or other site, have you ever gone back and changed a rating?
Let’s say you rate a book 4 stars, then after reflection you lower (or raise) your rating. Do you change your original rating or leave it alone?
Do you round up since you can’t usually give 1/2 stars?
How do you decide how many stars to give a book? It’s a very subjective process, obviously.
Are you generous or stingy with your stars?
What are the things a book must have to get a five star rating?
I think ultimately it’s the emotional and mental impact that makes a book 5 stars.
Are five stars enough or do you feel limited ?
Here’s a novel ideas… What if we had ten? Would you rather have more stars to share how you feel?
Let’s discuss!
Tell us about YOUR rating system!
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I wish I could do half stars, but since Goodreads doesn’t have that option, I try not to either. I think I would change a rating if I really thought down the line that the original rating wasn’t accurate.
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Thanks for commenting! I liked a book and gave it 4, then the more I thought about it… realized it was only a 3!
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I don’t particularly care for the five star rating system of gr. I think it should be done on a 1-10 scale. I determine a book to be a five, (which I don’t do all that often), if when I compare it to books I loved like The Heart’s Invisible Furries and East of Eden, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hill, Radium Girls, The Giver, and some others. If they don’t hold up to the writing, the story, the lessons learned, I don’t rate them five stars. Four star reads are those which I enjoy, where the writing is good, and the story makes sense and is not some far fetched idea that is not plausible at all. (Those would be my 1-2 books btw). Three stars are my middle of the road books. I liked them, but will probably forget them in a week’s time. Two star and one star books are books I found to be poorly written, have unbelievable ideas and concepts, and are for lack of a better word dumb.
I do think five star rating should be something special. I don’t see that happening too much though sadly. You have people saying they are sorry you didn’t enjoy the book even when you gave it a three star rating!
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I love this – thanks for going in depth. There are so many nuances to consider. ๐ค I like how thoughtful you are in your reviews.
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I change ratings! ๐ I Give very few 5s ….a 5 would go on my lifetime favorites list
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Lifetime Favorites. Sounds like a great blog post!
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Yes! Letโs do it! ๐๐
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I think that I have changed my rating on a couple of books. Sometimes I will rate just after reading and then as I formulate a review I realize that it may have been a bit better (or worse) than I previously thought. 5 stars are definitely something I do reserve for those books that I love and can’t stop talking about.;)
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That sounds about right! Glad Iโm not the only one… thanks for stopping by!
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I almost always round up for GR, but I clearly display the half star rating. The only time I round down is if there was something that really bugged me. Often, I cannot pinpoint why I don’t want to go a half star higher, but when I can, I will round down on GR.
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I tend to be generous with ratings.
I don’t change ratings/reviews. I had a problem with a street team I was on years ago; the author was manipulative and only wanted certain ratings, and she wanted the team to look at other ratings and thumb up/down certain ratings–a violation of TOS for Amazon. I left. decided because of that whatever review I left, it stays.
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I have changed a rating before, but not often. And I tend to be generous and round up, but I occasionally round down if I felt like the half star rating feels closer to the lower one. But sometimes it can be a struggle to figure out what to do!
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I have changed my mind about how I feel about a book, but it’s rare for me to go back into Goodreads to change the star rating. When I load my half-star ratings into Goodreads, I usually round up. I only round down when it would go up to a 5-star and I feel like that it would be misrepresenting my feelings about it to present it as 5-star. If I think it would be okay at 5 stars, I will round up. I usually end up throwing the official half-star rating at the start of my review too. What I really need to do right now is go back through my book reviews and put them into Goodreads, but I haven’t yet.
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