A guide to my rating system

Five stars means this book means a lot to me, I would reread it or have reread it many times, I recommend it for almost anyone, and it changed me in some way. I'm a different person in some way because I read this book. I loved it.

Four stars means this is a really good book that I highly recommend, but it is not among the ranks of the most important and most wonderful books I have read in my life. Still great, but I needed a way to distinguish these great reads from the truly inspired and important books that have made a deep impact on my life. Four stars is excellent.

Three stars is a good book such as one might enjoy reading once, perhaps between dinner and bedtime, and it was entertaining and enjoyable, without any deep flaws, but is not on the list of books I would actively implore friends to read.

Two stars means I read it, it was fine, but I didn't find it particularly memorable or excellent. Plenty of these aren't at all bad or disappointing, they just weren't books worth more than a single read, for fun.

One star means I read it and rather disliked it. Sometimes I enjoyed the one star books very much at the time I read them but they didn't hold up well with time, and I don't feel they have much merit for the future.

I wanted to write this because I feel that other people might classify a two-star or even a three-star book as bad or mediocre. That's not how I've done. All bad or mediocre books for me get one star. Even some books which were good at the time but just didn't have a lot of long term merit get one star. Two stars and up means it's a good book. I mostly read books I already know enough about to strongly suspect them of being really good. That's why my scale is so heavily weighted toward good books.