I saw a book blogger talk recently about what their book rating system meant in a post (I regret that I've forgotten who it was at this point), and I've been thinking about doing it ever since, although at first I was pretty sure that I wouldn't.
That's because I feel so confused about my own book rating system. If you only read my blog, you probably don't even know what I rate books over on Goodreads because I don't post it here on the blog. That's because I don't like doing it, and I never feel confident about what star rating I choose. Each time I finish a book, I'm waffling over the exact rating to choose for a bit before I finally force myself to click on one and accept it.
Maybe it wouldn't be so difficult if I had a clearer idea of what each level means, even just to me personally. I don't. More recently I've come to accept that one star means I really, really hated the book, and a large amount of the time, it will mean that I didn't even finish the book (since I can't rate a book zero stars on Goodreads). Five stars will often mean the best of the best that I've read, but sometimes I'm feeling really good about things, and I start giving out five stars reviews easier than I do at other times. So what exactly it means depends on when I rate the book.
And the two to four star ratings are even more confusing. I'm always particularly confused when I can't choose between a three or a four star rating.
Knowing that some people use ratings on a ten star (or other object/shape) scale blows my mind because how would you ever know what to rate things?
So, I still begrudgingly use the Goodreads star rating system, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I will admit that I kind of like being able to sort my reviews based on stars every so often. I just wish I could figure out more clearly what they all mean to me. I doubt I ever will, so for now, I'll stick to not including them in my blog reviews. Even if I sort my Goodreads shelves by them every now and then.
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