GETTING REAL WITH RATINGS
I’ll admit it. I’ve padded a few ratings in my day. Whether because I loved the author and wanted to rate the book better, because I wanted to enjoy the book more and bumped it up, or just felt bad rating a book lower, I’ve added an extra half a star (or a whole star) to a rating before just because it felt right… but apparently 2017 is the year of rating harshly!
Well… I haven’t been harsh per se. I’ve just been putting my real feelings more out there rather than saying a book was good and giving it four stars. I still have had a lot of four-star reads this year but I wasn’t afraid to rate some books three stars, even if I did enjoy them. A brain-candy read with little plot and things that bothered me didn’t need to be rated fours stars, and that’s okay! Even if I enjoyed a book, it doesn’t mean it’s the best book out there.
But what’s been most noticeable lately is my lack of five-star reads. Aside from re-reads I haven’t had… ANY this year??? I have had some super, super solid 4.5 star reads that I rounded up to 5, so we can count those (like STRANGE THE DREAMER, HUNTING PRINCE DRACULA, and A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC) but my other five-star reads have all been re-reads! And okay, I did pad WIRES AND NERVE a little bit because I adore Marissa Meyer and it hits all my feels being in the Lunar Chronicles world again. But where are all my five-star reads???
Sometimes I wonder if it’s the books. Am I not choosing the right books? I actually feel like I’ve been doing a better job of reading what I really want to read instead of what a publisher has offered me, and I’ve been doing better at turning down review copies or only requesting ones I really know I want, so that should actually help me pick better reads, which in a way I guess it has. I’ve had oodles of four star books and maybe about the same amount of threes but they were more books that I enjoyed but didn’t find feels with versus books I felt more disappointed in.
So maybe it’s just me! Has five years of reading gotten me all jaded about the books I’m reading? Am I expecting too much? Or are authors so amazing that they’ve set the bar so high that nothing compares until it blows me away? Or maybe I’ve read TOO MANY BOOKS and I’m having a hard time finding original ideas anymore.
I miss reading a book and being like OH. HECK. YES. I’M LIVING FOR THIS RIGHT NOW. It’s been so long! I think STRANGE THE DREAMER is my best read this year and I was definitely living for that book but there were just a couple minor hang-ups where I was ever-so-shy of 100% in love with it. I’m sure there are still five-star books out there for me and I will never quit the hunt to find them! And I’ve still read a lot of really great books this year too. Just because they weren’t five-star reads doesn’t mean I didn’t love them! I can’t wait for that feeling of being wholly enveloped in a story again though!
1 thought on “Discussion: Getting Real With Ratings!”
I do think that I am harder on books now then I was when I started pleasure reading again. I have more books under my belt, and although I don’t think it’s right to compare books to each other, I definitely do it. My mood plays a big role in my rating too. Again, so not fair, but it’s a reality.