Cheryl’s Comments (group member since Jul 30, 2011)

Cheryl’s comments from the More than Just a Rating group.

It's difficult to fight grade inflation, at least it is for me, but I agree that it's worth the attempt.

In my reviews I explain the flaws of a book, and explain why I gave it an extra star or rounded up.... At least that way ppl won't see that, for example, a four-star book is necessarily 'nearly perfect' and worth 5, but may be actually just a 3.6 star book.

Another reason to write careful reviews! :)

When our books are our closest friends, it's easy to be generous with them, as we would tolerate imperfections in human or animal companions.

Oh, yes! :laughing:

Move house. I move and therefore cull often. :sigh:

Exactly... "by readers" being maybe the most important point. We are not paid or professional critics, nor are we mindful of building a collection, but rather we are actual end consumers!

That makes sense to me.

Good question. Since I get the vast majority of my reads from the library, and the majority of the others used, I have no idea.

I have noted in my reviews that a picture-book might be outsize and therefore overpriced, not worthy, or (once) that it was a nice comfortable, smaller & more affordable book. Just because I do sometimes imagine what it would be like to purchase picture-books for gifts.

I *imagine* that in the case of the independent author I may have warned potential readers that she was raising her prices w/out raising quality. That is a shame.

I think that 'did not like it' isn't strong enough... that would tend to be the equivalent of two stars for me. 1 star is more like: how the heck did anyone think this worth killing a tree for...

The goodreads section that offers Filters and Sort Order also offers Text-Only, so you don't have to scroll past ratings-only 'reviews.'

That section is just above community reviews, below your friends reviews & questions.

What a helpful example, very creative, thank you!

I use a lot of 'em. They work, but sometimes it seems like I'm using them out of laziness and my review would be stronger without them. Books to me a 'charming' or 'thrilling' and characters are 'stereotyped' or 'authentic' etc.

There are some great tips in "Kill Your Adjectives--Well, Most of Them," by Leah McClellan: https://simplewriting.org/kill-your-a...

But what do you think? What are your tips?

Thank you.

That seems fair. And now I have to take a look at Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow and The Crow Girl even though I don't normally read in those genres. ;)

Yes, like that. I'm usually fooled enough to start reading, but I dnf a lot. Thank goodness for libraries.

Oh, I'm sorry, it never occurs to me to visit the author's website.

I mean words like 'thrilling'... esp. when the book is a family saga or something, not a thriller. Or 'dark secret'... when the book is also supposed to be 'heartwarming,' If I think of or find more examples I'll try to remember to come back to post.

Oh, Holly, I'm so happy that you found a way to benefit from goodreads. I've found myself reading fewer group books myself, though I do want to participate in good discussions. It is a bit of a dilemma.

L J wrote: "I also consider what the author says about the book, including genre and characters. Books not as described will lose at least 1 or 2 stars. ..."

1. Usually it is the publisher who writes the blurb, and often the author doesn't like it.

2. If the blurb is misleading, please post a better one in the librarian's group, or PM me, so we can fix it. We can't abide hype, and I, personally, avoid meme words.

I definitely have over the years here. More practice reading carefully (in order to write public reviews) means that I have less patience with weaker books, and I will either rate them lower than I might have earlier, or dnf very readily.

In fact, I once went back and looked at a few dozen of the first books I reviewed here, and knocked a star off of a bunch of them.

L J wrote: ".My rating system for years was 3 levels: Keeper, Keep For Now, Get Rid of It. "

I love this. I'd prefer a 3 point scale myself, instead of 5.

Definitely.

But what I'm getting about is more than just the exaggeration one might expect, but rather the focus on an aspect that is just such a minor piece of the story, or something else that is totally misleading.