Do you judge a book by its rating?

[Cozen]

Yes indeed. I religiously look at the negative one and two stars. They are usually very detailed reviews that give me more information than most 4 or 5 star reviews overly stuffed with GIFs and bias friend and family reviews. I usually look for similar pet peeves - like TSTL characters/cliffhangers/editing and spelling errors/ Wimpy Alpha males - before I decide to take a chance on a book. I’ve lost a lot of money over incomplete stories and stuffed fake reviews that I won’t buy a book on blind faith.

[Jayla]

I give a long, thoughtful review careful consideration too, and I don't expect impartiality, either, given subjective tastes--at least where we actually buy books, through links on GR or on AMZ or Kobo or whatever, unlike official critical reviews. But rating a DNF is hard for me--I know I'm in the vast minority there, though, because I know a lot of people would totally want to be warned about a book deemed too boring to finish by a reader they trust. I guess I just think they end up unfairly tilting the scales for books that are slower or character driven or whatever... I mean, I'm not advocating anyone waste their lives finishing a book they can't stand. But rating it is tough.

I like how, in these threads, I end up ranting about things I would literally never say out loud to anyone I can think of. Someone would be like, DNF is useful for me and I'd be like, cool, not me, but can we get milkshakes? And then we'd get milkshakes

[Inkslinger]

I actually try not to rate things that I DNF, because I don't feel like it's fair without finishing, unless it's just so bad it couldn't possibly get better enough. I may not have ever rated a DNF, but I wouldn't want to say that and find I'd been dishonest. Also, I really try to finish them no matter how bad they are. I can think of one exception in recent years.

Likewise, I don't mind a book that is slow or character driven.. as long as it's well written. It's books that lack those types of substance.. or those that feel like the author is just vomiting words onto the page and rushing through to the end.. that I find boring.

[Jayla]

Boring is hard to defend. What's that old quote? I couldn't find it but I liked this one: "being bored is an insult to one's self." From Jules Renard; maybe he was reading a really bad book, you never know.

[Inkslinger]

Haha.. you're not wrong.

[Cozen]

When a book starts causing me anxieties, tension in the neck and onset of fidgeting or page skipping, its a DNF. I rate them just as any other book. If I DNF there was something definitely wrong with it.

But what I really get annoyed by, or maybe flustered is a little bit better term at describing it, is when you get those one line reviews. “I hated it.” It drives me batty. What did they hate about it? Is it something that I would hate about it too? Is this thing worthy of discrediting the whole book over that one hateful thing? Where in the book does this hatred begin? Is it character or subject hatred? It’s so vague that I’d rather they just rate it without leaving a one line review. It’s worse when it’s one of the only few reviews there is for a book and the other reviews are just star ratings with no reviews.