What does the 'average rating' tell you about the reader?

[Adriano]

Hello,

I was wondering. I have seen some users whose average rating is pretty low. Mine's high, I know, and I will take it from my experience: I choose books that I am confident I will like. But if my rating were low... Would that mean I should choose my books more carefully? I mean, if you don't like most of the books you read, then find another hobby...

[Dorottya]

It depends. It can happen, for example, that they are in school, there are compulsory readings, the certain goodreads-er reads them because she / has to, but hates it. The same can happen with book clubs, too. And some people are just hard to please, and they have no preferred genre or style.
My ratings are on the higher side, too, but I now I can be more generous with ratings than others :D.

[Pepperpots]

I also choose books I am confident I will like. My low ratings (less than 3*) have often been for books I had to read or where I took a risk and just decided to read something unfamiliar to me.

I think it's just as interesting when you come across a reader whose ratings are bang in the middle. They neither love nor strongly dislike anything they read.

[Adriano]

My ratings are on the higher side too. Yes, I can see that if you have to read a book for school, you may not like it. But in lots of cases it's no school work.

Lisa, I used to do the same... 3= average, then I adapted to what I think is the general rating... Mind you, I don't rate much...

[Avid Reader and Geek Girl]

I tend to be at one of the two extremes, I either love a book or hate it. I rarely use the 3 or 4 stars.

[Karen M]

If I give a book a 3 that means it was okay but maybe I should have read something else. 4 is a good read and 5 is a great book that I would love to read again. 2 is usually a book I consider a waste of my time and 1 is usually, "How did this get published?!" Thankfully most of my reads are 4's.

[amaldae]

I guess I'm on the 'pretty low' side with my average rating of 2.90 (even though that's almost an average of "liked it" :D).

My 5 stars mean that the book was practically made of euphoria, that I probably cried and laughed with it, and that it also offered some stimulus for my less emotional side. One star, by contraty, is a book I either heartedly regret reading or one that just didn't have any redeeming qualities in my opinion.
Giving a book either of these ratings makes me feel rather bad about myself, but for some reason I tend to question the fives more (this criticality also shows in my reviews a lot, unfortunately). I mostly give 2s and 3s and when I'm checking a new book, I trust 2 star reviews most. Guess I'm a rather dispassionate person...

(view spoiler)[3 stars means it didn't entertain me that much/had more than a few problems I couldn't get past, but left a positive, if not lasting, last impression. four star books are my perhaps my favorites despite disappointing at some point, and twos usually mean that I had serious problems getting thorough the book, but it did something right. (hide spoiler)]

In my case, low-ish average rating does mean that I don't really choose the books I read, at least not based on what I have liked in the past. I like to try everything and to know what everyone else is talking about so I can participate in discussions, but my taste in books usually doesn't go hand in hand with what sells best. It also has to do with my unfortunate and admittedly stupid habit of reading long, badly written series/to give an author I have disliked up to FOUR chances of convincing me.

But in general I really like reading and think it's both useful and fun. I don't like disliking books and don't derive great pleasure from writing negative reviews (like some do), though. There's just something in getting addicted to a hateable serieses even if reading and reviewing them isn't necessary. I feel no need of getting another hobby ;)

(My goal is to give up this habit and get my average rating up to 3 stars some day.)

[Bonnie]

mine is probably kind of artificially high. Unless I'm reading for a bookclub read or a free book I feel obligated to finish on kindle, I usually quit reading any books I'm going to rate low pretty quick. So mine are mostly 3 or 4. I don't rate a lot 5, since even books I like are not always ones I'd read over and over.

[Jim]

According to the Goodreads guideline for rating books: 1-star = "Did not like." - 2-stars = "It was okay." - 3-stars = "Good" - 4-stars = "Really good" - 5-stars = "Amazing".

For whatever reason, many readers choose to apply their personal meaning to each star rating. This lack of conformity can result in mis-interpretation or confusion when researching a book's average rating.

A cursory perusal of Goodreads members' ratings reveals an inordinate number of 5-star awards.

I personally have read many books during the past five decades or so. A few I did not like, some were just okay, most were good, many were very good, but only a very few would meet the criteria for being considered "Amazing" (Definition: Filled with wonder; astounding; astonishing).

That said; it is important to remember that ratings and reviews are just opinions. Very few reviewers are actually professionals who make a very comfortabel living reviewing books. They have mastered the ability to look at a book objectively so as not to allow emotion, prejudice, or ulterior motives impact their evaluation.

[Katie]

Thoughtful post - when I first started, I thought the 5 star rating should be reserved for very few books - the truly extraordinary. However, I have found myself giving more books the 5 star rating to help the authors. Books seem to be promoted/purchased by the number of high ratings. A consistent, fair approach should be the goal of the ratings but I suspect it is not.

[Jim]

Katie wrote: "Thoughtful post - when I first started, I thought the 5 star rating should be reserved for very few books - the truly extraordinary. However, I have found myself giving more books the 5 star ratin..."

Katie,

Though motivated by good intentions, inflating book ratings is akin to inflating currency. After awhile, it has lost its value and is no longer a dependable measurement of worth, so few take it seriously.

[amaldae]

Jim wrote: "For whatever reason, many readers choose to apply their personal meaning to each star rating. This lack of conformity can result in mis-interpretation or confusion when researching a book's average rating."

Personally I have had problems in defining what separates "liking" a book from "liking really liking" it, etc. I believe this is the case for many Goodreaders, who then feel the need to state their rating criterias in more detail to avoid said confusion. Katie's post also reminded me of the fact that some of us rate books by genre, or are more accepting of imperfections in, say, self-published books that haven't had a team of professionals perfecting them.

To think of an ideal reviewer as someone who remains objective on any occasion feels also a bit baffling to me (admittedly this is partly due to me being extremely subjective in my own ratings). While believing that a really good review states both the good and the bad and possibly compares a work to others of its kind, I also find it hard to believe that anyone - professional or not - would be truly capable of staying objective while disassemblig a book, or any other piece of creative work, or that such objectivity would produce anything of value to other people (particulary on a site like this one).

Would an average rating tell anything more than it does now, should everyone use the same kind of criteria, considering we are probably all looking for different things when we open a new book? (Though, the friending and following options that Goodreads offers have provided a way to check what people whose judgements you have come to trust have thought of whatever it is that you're planning to read next).

(I see the value of this discussion coming up with every comment posted in the thread. How interestingly different views we indeed can hold =))

[Ash]

I tend to rate things lower in general, saving my four- and five-star ratings for books that really stand out to me. If I see a reviewer who has a high average, I assume that they are easy to please when it comes to literature, and that they probably have lower standards than I do.

That said, I firmly believe that all reviews of books (and music/movies, for that matter) are entirely subjective, so I like to go through a person's shelves to get a better idea of the kind of reader they are.

[Tracey]

I tend to look more at the books the person has rated compared to mine more because that's what I'm interested in. I'm going to take it more into consideration if they've rated books that I've rated a 2 as a 5. And if I see a lot of 1s and 5s I'm inclined to think that they don't put a lot of thought into their readings. Not enough books warrant an "amazing" or "bad" rating in my opinion.

But, to be more on topic, I don't think the average rating means too much unless your rating is on an extreme side. An extremely high average indicates to me that someone is over-inflating books or maybe they just don't get out of their comfort level much. An extremely lower average rating to me indicates that they're rating books as "terrible" without putting much thought into whether it just wasn't their type of book.

[N]

For me 5 is excellent, 4 is very good, 3 is 'good' and 2/1 is not enjoyable or unreadable. I don't rate books I really hated.