Ok I am a data driven person generally but my star ratings - which are for me and only me - are completely intuitive. I don’t agonise over them and I am ok with, for example, a book I rated 5 stars not ending up not on my best of list at the end of the year in favour of a 4 star book. That said, I do not review publicly (other than putting a star rating on GR) so there are very few people taking any interest in my ratings. But I also really don’t use other people’s star ratings to decide if I want to read something.
I love hearing your thought process on this! As someone who does love data and decision-making, I use ratings to be able to sort my different Goodreads shelves to help me create best-of lists and such. I change ratings sometimes and wish there were halves too - it’s a personal and messy system that I know not everyone does the same, but for me rankings help make the subjective objective.
I agree with all of this! I don't use star ratings on my Bookstagram account because I want my review to stand for itself and tell how much I liked a book, and I've also stopped entering them on Goodreads. I feel like when I read reviews by others, if there's a star rating there, I sometimes pay more attention to that than the actual review, even though the review gives the nuance and meaning behind the rating.
I agree! I only leave a rating on my goodreads if I thought it was a five star book, which is more for me to remember which books really wowed me. I’m also an eclectic reader and it’s so hard to use the same rating system between book type.
I love the topic of this post! I am taking a break from star ratings because it started to feel really performative and I noticed that I was letting other people's star rating was influencing whether or not I purchased a book. I think the best recent example was with the book A Dangerous Business. I read your review Sara, and it sounded like something I would love--and I did. I almost let the Goodreads 3.23 rating keep me from reading it. This really caused me to pause and consider how I interact and consume other's ratings. Going forward with my year I plan to do more "reading with my gut"!
This is such a great topic to discuss- I'm not going to lie when I saw you were breaking up with your star ratings I felt a little sad because I do love to see what ratings you give 😅 I love data and research and decision making so star ratings are something I feel like I need to give my books - for me. It helps me sort and remember how I felt about books, I even started doing quarter star ratings on The Storygraph and it all helps me be clear on how I feel about what I read. What I realized reading your thoughts is that I tend to put other's star ratings through my own star rating filter - so if you gave a book 4.5 stars I would think you felt about that book the same way I did about a 4.5 book which isn't at all true! I enjoy reading other's reviews so that's really most important for me when seeing what others have to say about a book but star ratings are something I definitely need for myself.
I agree with so many of your points and love that you wrote about this topic! For me, it’s mainly a kind of personal reflection, but I also struggle with rating the book’s merit vs my own enjoyment and definitely overthink my ratings (and change them) way too often. I like seeing them included in reviews as a kind of shorthand, but I don’t put too much weight on them in general. I’m more interested in reading someone’s thoughts and then considering if the book sounds like a good fit for me. Goodreads drives me crazy with whole stars only and I’ve found I really love StoryGraph for its ability to assign half and quarter stars.
I agree with your thoughts! I am starting to feel like my star ratings on Goodreads are meaningless. I give so many books 3 star ratings, and I definitely like some of those books better than others. (Sometimes I'll only give a book 3 stars even though I really like it because I feel like most wouldn't consider it great literature. Which is really kind of silly on my part.) I rarely give 5 stars, unless I am totally wowed by a book. Looking back at my reading experience for the year, giving those lower ratings sometimes makes me think I didn't have a great reading year, when I actually did. So anyway, all of that to say I may also abandon star ratings!
How do we get the Auden rating of books to become ubiquitous? Do we put it before the board for a vote?
All in favor say, “Aye.”
Ok I am a data driven person generally but my star ratings - which are for me and only me - are completely intuitive. I don’t agonise over them and I am ok with, for example, a book I rated 5 stars not ending up not on my best of list at the end of the year in favour of a 4 star book. That said, I do not review publicly (other than putting a star rating on GR) so there are very few people taking any interest in my ratings. But I also really don’t use other people’s star ratings to decide if I want to read something.
I am in complete agreement about grading - is there anything worse?
And one of the reasons I never got into using goodreads is that the star ratings stressed me out 😆
I love Auden’s five verdicts though. That’s an approach that makes sense to me!
I love hearing your thought process on this! As someone who does love data and decision-making, I use ratings to be able to sort my different Goodreads shelves to help me create best-of lists and such. I change ratings sometimes and wish there were halves too - it’s a personal and messy system that I know not everyone does the same, but for me rankings help make the subjective objective.
I agree with all of this! I don't use star ratings on my Bookstagram account because I want my review to stand for itself and tell how much I liked a book, and I've also stopped entering them on Goodreads. I feel like when I read reviews by others, if there's a star rating there, I sometimes pay more attention to that than the actual review, even though the review gives the nuance and meaning behind the rating.
I agree! I only leave a rating on my goodreads if I thought it was a five star book, which is more for me to remember which books really wowed me. I’m also an eclectic reader and it’s so hard to use the same rating system between book type.
I love the topic of this post! I am taking a break from star ratings because it started to feel really performative and I noticed that I was letting other people's star rating was influencing whether or not I purchased a book. I think the best recent example was with the book A Dangerous Business. I read your review Sara, and it sounded like something I would love--and I did. I almost let the Goodreads 3.23 rating keep me from reading it. This really caused me to pause and consider how I interact and consume other's ratings. Going forward with my year I plan to do more "reading with my gut"!
This is such a great topic to discuss- I'm not going to lie when I saw you were breaking up with your star ratings I felt a little sad because I do love to see what ratings you give 😅 I love data and research and decision making so star ratings are something I feel like I need to give my books - for me. It helps me sort and remember how I felt about books, I even started doing quarter star ratings on The Storygraph and it all helps me be clear on how I feel about what I read. What I realized reading your thoughts is that I tend to put other's star ratings through my own star rating filter - so if you gave a book 4.5 stars I would think you felt about that book the same way I did about a 4.5 book which isn't at all true! I enjoy reading other's reviews so that's really most important for me when seeing what others have to say about a book but star ratings are something I definitely need for myself.
I agree with so many of your points and love that you wrote about this topic! For me, it’s mainly a kind of personal reflection, but I also struggle with rating the book’s merit vs my own enjoyment and definitely overthink my ratings (and change them) way too often. I like seeing them included in reviews as a kind of shorthand, but I don’t put too much weight on them in general. I’m more interested in reading someone’s thoughts and then considering if the book sounds like a good fit for me. Goodreads drives me crazy with whole stars only and I’ve found I really love StoryGraph for its ability to assign half and quarter stars.
I agree with your thoughts! I am starting to feel like my star ratings on Goodreads are meaningless. I give so many books 3 star ratings, and I definitely like some of those books better than others. (Sometimes I'll only give a book 3 stars even though I really like it because I feel like most wouldn't consider it great literature. Which is really kind of silly on my part.) I rarely give 5 stars, unless I am totally wowed by a book. Looking back at my reading experience for the year, giving those lower ratings sometimes makes me think I didn't have a great reading year, when I actually did. So anyway, all of that to say I may also abandon star ratings!