The razor thin line

There's a razor thin line between being a reviewer and being a writer.  Reading work with a writer's hat on you tend to look at things that you could have done in your own work, or things that you would never do in your own work, and judge the entire piece on your own abilities. As a reviewer though you have to ignore those impulses and look at a book purely as a reader.  Did I enjoy it, was it a compelling story, were the characters well written, did it make sense, etc. Then the third factor comes into play.  Was the book written by an independent (and most likely self published) author.  Why is this a factor?  For me it's because that's what I am, and there's a sense of comradery with fellow independent authors.  You want them to do well because you want to do well.  So for me there's a real drive to write constructive and indepth reviews.  (Note:  I'm not saying my reviews are any better or worse than anyone elses).  But written reviews are only half of it.  The rest is the dreaded star system.  Places like Amazon and Goodreads only allow whole stars, i.e. 3 or 4 out of 5.  Which is a pain, because sometimes I want to rate something 3 and a 1/2, and that's not an option.  So do I go higher or lower.  It depends on the book, but I usually feel if I was going to score something a 4 then there wouldn't be an debate about it.  So I tend to score lower.  At the end of day, it's only my opinion, but I'd rather feel good about my score, then provide a higher rating than the book deserves. Of course with well known authors the story is different.  If they have a large publishing firm behind them and I still think there are issues with the book, then the gloves are off.