How genereous are you with your book rating?

[Chandramas (Chiara)]

I'm giving a lot of 3 stars lately. I feel bad giving less but I don't know.

What do you think? We should give good rating and be positive (usually I try to do that with new writers) or are you brutal in your rating?

[Jena]

I usually am generous. I am not a writer but know how hard it is and how much time, energy, and heart an author will put into it. I feel wrong bashing a book that I may deem terrible.

[Beanie]

I try to rate it for what it is as well as the quality of the book. For example, a 3* 99 cent Kindle book is a different rating than a 3* $7 book. I have higher expectations for things I pay more for.
A 5* 99 cent book should probably be a 3/4* , but sometimes I'm pleasantly entertained.

[Veronica]

I stick pretty close to the GR star rating system so, for me, I don't consider a three star rating a bad thing. It means I liked the book. That's the rating I give out most often. I'm more picky about giving out four stars and very rarely do I give out five stars. And I don't take account of the price, though that's an interesting approach and I can see the pros of it. But I tend to like to make things as simple as I can so it's one flat rating system for regardless of how much I paid for the story.

[Alicia]

I try to be honest. If it's an author I love but I enjoyed the book less than usual I might err on the side of generosity.

[Keidy]

I'm always honest and transparent with how I rate and review my books. If there is a book that is really bad or really excellent I will rate it accordingly. I don't think that the ratings are as important as the review that follows. If a book sucks, I make it a point to say why the book was substandard to me. Liking or disliking a book is hugely subjective after all. More than that, I think it is a disservice to the author and the readers to sugarcoat the ratings because you feel bad. If anything else, that should give you more reason to be more straightforward with your opinions, not in just mindlessly bashing the book, but being intelligent, thoughtful and transparent with why the book didn't work for you.

[PointyEars42]

3 stars is a GOOD rating. Literally. We all go through months and months of reading when nothing stands out of the pack either as notably good or notably bad.

It’s when people rate a "good" book as 4 or 5 stars just to be nice that you lead fellow readers (and the writers) astray. When I’m picking a book based on a Goodreads rec, I always check one 5 star and one 1 star review to get a realistic sense of the book’s pros and cons. It’s pretty obvious that many 5 star reviews have been paid/bartered for or written by friends or fans, so reviews from real readers need to be very honest to counteract that nonsense. I hardly hand out any 5 stars, but when I do it’s because the book melted my brain and becomes something that I will push at my friends and eventually re-read. I don't shy away from the 1 star ratings either because I always have a good reason for it, especially when I’ve had to rage-quit or have to lem it.

I think we also need to always remember that publishing, no matter the blood & sweat the authors put in, is a profit-based business, and if they can get away with quantity over quality they will. We shouldn't enable that with either our pockets or our reviews.

[Vicky]

I don't think you should ever feel bad rating a book with the rating you think it deserves. I think there are plenty of authors who appreciate constructive bad reviews (although there are definitely some that will cause drama over it), they are constantly honing their craft and without someone to say "ehhh... this didn't really work" they don't know what to work on.

I generally use 3* as my go to rating; a book that didn't do anything really groundbreaking or make me want to throw it at a wall, but kept me entertained and I enjoyed earns 3 stars. So I definitely see a 3 as a positive rating. Anything else either exceeds or did not live up to my expectations, though I tend to reserve 1* for books I don't finish.

[Taryn]

I'm honest with my reviews. If I like a book, I like it. If I hate a book, I hate it. I'm not going to dish out extra stars because the author wrote a book or because I liked how the series started but hated how it ended.

Bad books get 1-2 stars based on how many redeeming qualities it has. Three is a standard good book. Four is a book I really liked. Five is the "OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS BOOK I"M GONNA READ IT AGAIN JUST BECAUSE!" rating.

[Bree]

If I really like a book: 5 stars
Liked it: 4 stars
It was ok: 3 stars
Not really what I expected: 2 stars
Something upset me: 1 star

I try not to rate books below 3... so usually I will leave it blank... unless the story really bothered me.

[Romana]

I tend to be pretty honest and fair in my reviews in my view. Although, I rarely give out 1 star or 5 star reviews. A book has to be pretty bad for me to give it a 1 star review and since I read multiple reviews of others before I decide to read a book it's not likely I'll pick up a book I feel deserves a 1 star review in the first place. For a 5 star review a book has to have something special or be something pretty amazing in the genre. A 3 star review in my mind isn't a bad thing. It means that I enjoyed the book, but I wouldn't read it again and I feel like it adds nothing new. Most of the books I give 3 stars to tend to be formulaic in their story.

Having said all that I do have certain genres, especially historical romance, where I don't expect anything new or groundbreaking. So, the majority of books I read for that genre get 4 star ratings because I really do enjoy them and don't start reading them with any kind of expectation other than expecting the book to follow the typical historical romance tropes.

[Carolyn F.]

I round up which I think is semi-nice, a 2-1/2 star gets a 3 etc. I also review on Booklikes and they have 1/2 stars there.

[Alicia]

Carolyn F. wrote: "I round up which I think is semi-nice, a 2-1/2 star gets a 3 etc. I also review on Booklikes and they have 1/2 stars there."

1/2 stars would be SO helpful!

[Christopher]

I try to be honest and constructive. Even more so with a bad review than a good one.
If I give one or two stars, I feel the author deserves to know why.

[Miya]

I'm usually pretty generous with my reviews, mostly because I round up since we aren't given the option to use half stars. I and rarely review books that I hate unless it's really worth pointing out.

[Sam]

I feel like I've been pretty stingy with my 5 stars this year. I've still given 4 stars more than anything less, but my ratings are leaning quite so heavily to the upper ones as other years. Does anyone else really enjoy looking at the graph of the book's publication dates compared to when you read them?

[Jo]

1* - Dear god, I really hated everything about this book
2* - It wasn't completely appalling in some parts, but was otherwise irredeemable
3* - It was okay. I probably would have changed a lot of things about it, but it was generally solid. Not something I'd actively recommend.
4* - Really enjoyed it! Several things I didn't like in how the book was done, but it was otherwise fantastic! Definitely something I would recommend.
5* - HKHDSKJLKFS <3

[Laura]

I also tend to be generous with my reviews & give out a lot of three stars. I try to be positive & find some small thing to like.

[Sarah]

I love Jo's scale - that's pretty much on point for what I do, as well.

[Cas]

Sometimes I give out a 5 just because I'm in an okay mood, so that's kind of... weird.
1. I did not understand a damn thing about this. Or it was so offensive I couldn't even finish. Typically it's written by a deranged crow.
2. Well, I mean, I understood parts. The story was crap. Maybe one character was okay.
3. Decent. A well formulated story. Full of crap I could live without but... whatever. I liked it.
4. Had all the things I want out of a book, even with some minor flaws.
5. I loved it blindly. That is all.

[Shadi ***save your ratings use disclaimers**]

I tend to stay within the bookreads guidelines. 3 stars is my average. if we fawn over mediocre then the author will never learn how to be better. Some might not like it but i know many that do.

The only exception is if i go back for a reread it automatically gets bumped to a five stars even if it was rated a 3 previously. If i like it enough to read it again then it deserves the rating.

[Daphne]

My rating system is pretty close to Jo's. The only difference is that my five star rating is reserved for books which I find Genuinely Moving--something like Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, or Charles Dickens.

[Jo]

I actually struggle a lot with whether or not I should give a book five stars. A 5 star middle grade fantasy does not equal a 5 star Pride and Prejudice, etc.

It's sort of irritating in that I can never decide whether to be sparing or not with them.

[Chelsea]

I have sometimes gone back into my rating and changed it after giving myself a couple of days to ponder a book. I think in the past I've been pretty forgiving with my ratings. However, more recently I've definitely been more real with myself about what I thought about a book.

[Gary]

My "average" rating here on GR is 3.89. However, I have noticed that I have a tendency not to rate at all books I've abandoned, or that were bad enough that I don't even want to be reminded of them, so I remove them from my list of read books. Occasionally, I'll give a book a low rating because I couldn't finish it, but generally I just delete the entry and move on.

Plus, that number factors in a lot of books that I rated when joining the site--like I'm sure a lot of folks did--and those tended to be books I remembered and enjoyed over the last several decades. I didn't bother going through every Piers Anthony novel, though I read a lot of them back in the day. They just don't stand out in the memory that way.

On the other hand the 1-5 rating system of GR is a pretty blunt instrument, so I don't know if it's all that meaningful. There are books that I'd say are above a 5 or below a 1. I read Mein Kampf, for example. Not real comfortable even giving that a rating.... Does The Great Gatsby or Being and Nothingness really register on the same 1-5 scale that I'm rating a contemporary YA novel? I gave Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber five stars--and I stand behind that rating--but does that book register on the same scale as, say, Sexing the Cherry by Winterson? Nope.

[Chasity]

This year I've read so many good books. Most of the books I have given four or five stars and nothing below three stars but it just so happens that everything I have read has really spoken to me or entertained me. I'm starting to feel bad about handing out so many good ratings even though that doesn't make any sense!

[Mia]

My ratings are somewhat similar to Bree's. If I really like a book, it's 5 stars. But I have to really like it, it's essentially favorite book territory. 4 stars I give to things that I just plain liked or are close to 5 stars but not quite - something in them just wasn't enough, 3 stars is for okay/good/pretty good (I find the goodreads standard of having 2 stars as the 'okay' option a tad too sad) and most of my ratings fall into this one, 2 stars is in the "meh"/pretty-bad-with-some-good side of things, 1 star is me wishing I could give negative stars. Or just 0 stars.

I don't really take into consideration the genre or media in the ratings, rather lone whether the book is considered a classic literature or not. I will still like it or dislike it the same and I will still consider essentially the same factors from plot, characters and writing(/art) to how the work made me feel and how interested I was in it.

I also see no reason to be particularly positive with star ratings (though I might give 3 star ratings more easily than, say, 2 star ones), what's the point if it doesn't reflect my opinion at the time? (If I want to go into detail and explain myself, I will write a review to go with the rating.) Besides, I don't feel like my individual input has too much of a weight to it when there are hundreds if not thousands of other people weighing in on the book as well, providing an average. And when you - as a curious, potential reader - look at the written review section, you will see the good and the bad mentioned from a variety of angles, coming from people with varying backgrounds and experiences, so you'll probably get a pretty good idea about the work. (Unless you're super paranoid/reluctant about the possibility of spoilers and avoid reading the reviews.)

[Linnea]

I try to always be honest when rating or reviewing books. Yes, I imagine it's not fun for an author to receive a 1* review, but I also imagine they want to see our true reaction to their book and to be able to work and improve from that.

If I'm uncertain which rating to choose, I might look at other books in the same series or other books by the same author, and have that decide for me if I'm rounding (as an example) my 3,5 up to a 4* or down to a 3*. But generally I don't have that issue and the rating is pretty clear to me.

I don't follow the rating system that Goodreads suggests (I find it unbalanced). The way I see it a five star scale has two good ratings, two bad ratings and one neutral (neither good nor bad). So 5,4,3,2,1 becomes +2,+1,0,-1-2 to me.

[Jo]

Linnea, I agree! The goodreads system has always seemed unbalanced to me.