The Sword and Laser discussion
The 5-Star System Conundrum
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Ratings like everything else, are subjective and driven by the readers opinion.For me, a 1 star or 2 star book means you hated it and didn't like it. If I see a 1 or 2 star rating, I'm expecting to see a review discussing how the characters were 1 dimensional, the plot incoherent, the pacing languid and painful.
I also expect a comment saying, "This book just wasn't for me. I tried to get into it, tried to enjoy it, but ultimately I found it to be boring."
If you've rated classics at 1 or 2 stars, that's fine, it's because you didn't like the book or it wasn't a good match for you. And unfortunately, indie authors are also going to be subject to this rating, whether they like it or not.
So if it was a bad book or one that wasn't a good fit for you, then your 1-2 star rating sounds appropriate either way.
I'm going to try to not be a wet blanket, but this topic has come up several times before. I know threads get lost here all the time, so I'm just going to post the thread I started four years ago and walk away, because nothing has changed for me. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
What Sean said. But let’s not discount the idea you might be insane.
Just rate. Volume of ratings matters more than the score. Any text you offer is gravy. Indie authors will be glad for a rating, well, unless it is a 1.
As an indie Author I can say that I’m still happy to get those 1 stars, because it still helps our visibility. Getting reviews and ratings is hard enough, I can’t afford to be picky about what kind I get.
Ratings are inherently problematic. I probably said this on the linked thread but.... 1) It's very hard to capture everything about a book in 1 dimension. What if the plot was a 4, the characters 5s (except for a couple who were 1s) and the worldbuilding a 2?
2) people do not use ratings the way they're officially defined so you cannot compare a 3 star rating form person A to one from person B. I've seen rave reviews with 3 star ratings and unenthusiastic "it's OK" reviews with 4 stars.
All of this evens out with dozens, hundreds or thousands of reviews which both means you're not really going to harm someone but also means that the VAST majoring of books range from 3 to 4 stars.
The best thing you can do is rate consistently according to your own lights and write a clear review. I don't care if you rated something 2 stars, I want to know why you didn't like it. Not "I didn't like the writing" - that's useless. "I thought the characters lacked any depth and each seemed like a trope rather than a person" is better.
Call me crazy, but this is what the star system means to me:1 star. "didn't like it"
2 stars. "it was ok"
3 stars "liked it"
4 stars "really liked it"
5 stars "it was amazing"
I've no idea where I got that from, but it seems simple enough.
In related news I also treat the "Favorites" shelf as a sort of semi-sacred "6 star" rating for books that just keep returning to my mind or really impacted my life.
William wrote: "Call me crazy, but this is what the star system means to me:..."
That's the problem. Some people use different meanings. Mine happen to be close to yours but I guarantee you there are people out there who view 3 stars as the bare minimum rating and anything below sucks. And that there are people who can really love a book yet rate it 3 stars.
The problem with a 5 star system is that it's not a 5 star system for people who take some time to choose what to read. Yeah, we'll occasionally have a dud but it's much more likely that by being selective a book will be at least 3 stars for us (using something like William's meaning of 'Liked it'). That really only leaves 2 stars for most reads since, if you're at all critical relatively few books will score a perfect 5. This turns the Bell Curve into something that is more like a steep sided triangle.
The only people who would genuinely run into 1 and 2 star reads with the frequency predicted by statistics are those who read indiscriminately, picking up a lot of unknown authors because the blurb sounds interesting etc.
William wrote: "Call me crazy, but this is what the star system means to me:1 star. "didn't like it"
2 stars. "it was ok"
3 stars "liked it"
4 stars "really liked it"
5 stars "it was amazing"
I've no idea where..."
When you hover over each star that's what the description is - and it's what I use. I tend to rate books harshly and give lots of 1 stars to books that I know are "good" and lots of other people would love. I don't feel bad about it because most books have thousands of ratings, so my 1 star is a drop in the bucket.
I think William is joking about not knowing where he got it from.It's the same system I use--I rate on my personal enjoyment of the book. Hopefully enough other people do so as well so that I can find people with similar tastes to mine.
I rate based on my personal enjoyment as well; I frankly don't care if it serves someone else's purpose. It allows me to go back and see which authors I might want to read again or recommend to friends.I think Rick is correct that we tend select books that we're predisposed to enjoy because of author or subject but I also think that a book can get 5 stars without being perfect. Can't you love something (or someone) despite its flaws?
I also find that about half the 1 and 2 star ratings I've given over the last several years have been to books I've read because of this group. A lot of the others have been gifts. Letting someone else pick your books is a crapshoot.
Phil wrote: "... I also think that a book can get 5 stars without being perfect. Can't you love something (or someone) despite its flaws?..."Sure, but to me a 5 star book should be one of the best books you've read recently/this year. I don't think it has to be 'perfect' but if someone is giving more than a few 5 star ratings in a given year, I think they're just being too lax in what they consider awesome, vs very good.
This is part of the problem with a 5 star system. If you don't read a lot of 1 and 2 star books you're left with only 3 levels to express how you feel about a book.
Rick wrote: "Phil wrote: "... I also think that a book can get 5 stars without being perfect. Can't you love something (or someone) despite its flaws?..."Sure, but to me a 5 star book should be one of the be..."
I gave A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo 5 Stars even though it started as a John Olivier Joke and is only 40 pages. But it's the cutest children's book I've ever read and would recommend it to everyone.
I've been curious about this for a while, so I occasionally check out my yearly stats as listed here on Goodreads. I take each book on it's own merit, and rate books on how I felt about them. I've found that I tend to have about the same number of one and five stars, the same number of four and two stars, and the bulk of my reading is in the three star range. (to note, I average about 100 books a year, so while I'm not, NOT picky I read a lot and I read widely)For me, this means that my rating system is probably pretty internally consistent and that's all I really care about. I use this site to keep track of my reading habits and books that I've read or want to read, with maybe some notes on what I thought about the books. If I find books while I'm on here, that's great (and I do love the book club feature).
I must say I have a rather high average. Does that mean that I'm a bad reviewer? I don't think so, I think it just means that I've liked, really liked or found amazing a lot of books in the last few years.When I look back over my stats I can see which years were "good years" and which were less so.
I must say this year is a really good one (for reading) so far :-)
Tracey wrote: "But it's the cutest children's book I've ever read and would recommend it to everyone ..."That's probably the best criterion for a 5 star rating... the book you'd recommend to everyone.
Tracey wrote: "I gave A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo 5 Stars even though it started as a John Olivier Joke and is only 40 pages. But it's the cutest children's book I've ever read and would recommend it to everyone."This is an argument I had constantly with a movie reviewer I worked with back in the 90s. My opinion was that you can’t rate things aimed at kids the same way you do films (or books) intended for adults. He was dogmatic in his belief that ratings needed to be rigid.
By his criteria, a Bugs Bunny cartoon would always be a 1-star affair compared to Natural Born Killers. To me, that’s nuts. The audience for each is completely different and literally has different mental capacity, nevermind life experience. That’s like comparing a baby’s mobile to a Chinese checkers game and calling the mobile a waste of time. You don’t get to the level of thinking needed to play Chinese checkers without first going through the “ooh, shiny and moving” stage of development.
I remember when I went to see Antz there was a little boy sitting behind me who couldn’t have been more than 6 years old who was terrified by the movie, and during the scene where the locusts rampage through the ant colony he plaintively asked his dad, “Are they all dead? I’m scared.” You can’t throw Se7en at that kid if cartoon violence by actual cartoons is traumatizing him.
Side note: was anyone else disappointed that this thread wasn’t about a solar system with five suns?Every time I see it come up on my feed I get a little thrill at that idea, only to realize it’s about rating books.
🤩 --> 😐
Nothing against Mat’s question, just the way the thread is titled causing that frisson in my nerd brain.
Yeah, I flashed on the Three Body Problem as well. Where's my Quin-Tatooinne?
Trike - I also think you have to account for the goals of a book or movie. I keep seeing critics dismiss things like Bond films as formulaic but that's part of what they are. We KNOW Bond is a superspy, exceptionally good at what he does, etc. Sure, there are things you can do within that framework that make the film better or worse, but at heart it's an escapist romp. Same thing for a lot of the SFF films and for books.
Trike wrote: "Side note: was anyone else disappointed that this thread wasn’t about a solar system with five suns?"YES ME TOO.
I don't even want to TALK about what happened when I tuned in to "Nick At Night" to see "My Three Suns." *flings hands in air*Okay, true story. I was about 10 so this would be mid 1970s. I heard a tickler on the afternoon news that the late news would have a story about aliens. I got all excited and my parents decided to let me stay up. When the story ran, not an extraterrestrial in sight! It was about illegal aliens. I'd never heard the term before, nor for that matter heard "alien" used to mean anything except something Not Of This Earth.
This was around the same time that I found out that meteorology had nothing to do with meteors. *kicks dirt*
Okay, free association over, back to regularly scheduled programming.
William wrote: "Call me crazy, but this is what the star system means to me:1 star. "didn't like it"
2 stars. "it was ok"
3 stars "liked it"
4 stars "really liked it"
5 stars "it was amazing"
I've no idea where..."
I rate my books the same way William does. I have rated 682 books with a 3.91 average rating. I guess that means that the books I read are mostly rated as "really liked it". I use a favorites shelf which is at 22 books for my above 5-star rated books.
Until the discussion on S&L about how a 3-star average reflects on a book, I’ve never considered this rating as a reflection on the quality of the book (or the author!). I’ve always thought of it more as a way of cataloguing my reads in relation to one another. A 1 or 2, for me, doesn’t mean that it’s a bad book (I’ve rated some classics this low), it just means I don’t want to read more books like that. Even a book I absolutely love and would rate 5 stars on Amazon, I might give a 4 on Goodreads because it doesn’t live up to my other 5’s.
Am I INSANE, or do other people use ratings in a similar way? As a writer, I’m feeling a little bit of guilt creeping in for the authors I may have done an incidental disservice to.