I have been debating star ratings since I signed up on Goodreads. I know I am not the only person out there that feels that 5 little stars are hardly a judge on the quality on a book. But then, I am sure that I am not the only person who eyes the star ratings and judges whether a book might be worth buying and reading or not.Initially I thought I would stick to what the Goodreads stars said - after all, how is the 'system' supposed to know what I enjoy or not. And how is their rating system supposed to work if every Dick, Tom, Jack and Harry out there have there own meanings assigned to the number of stars? But in so many cases we are not even comparing apples to oranges, but apples to orangutans!
What do I mean? Well, looking at my 2014 5-star ratings I can already see discrepancies. Some obvious classics got 5-star ratings from me, namely:Frankenstein, Animal Farm and Brave New World. Excellent stories, beautifully written. But then, also receiving 5 stars were Coraline, Wonder, Ready Player One, and Assassin's Apprentice. Now these I also loved. Also excellent stories, beautifully written. But are they the same? Can I really compare Coraline and Frankenstein (although they do rhyme nicely)? This gets more complicated when I look at my 4-star ratings. How could I have given both Lee Child and Terry Pratchett 4 stars? Terry Pratchett is a master of language! His metalanguage makes me happy - very happy. While Child's character makes me happy, it is for a more barbaric reason and not one based on intellect (it's nice to see bad guys die). Further down the star order, I see I gave The World According to Garp the same 3 stars I gave the Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta books. Really? No? Although I plodded through Garp, it was better, much, much better. In fact, one might easily argue, that it was written a lot better than Child's book, or some of the other books I gave 5-stars to.
The first problem is that different genres, styles of writing and age groups are all being lumped together - apples with orangutans. The second problem is that I am wanting to judge everything on a single star rating. My degrees and daily dealings with language are wanting to make an intellectual snob out of me. I want to judge quality of writing, development of characters, quality of the message and everything else, including enjoyment, in that single rating. It isn't possible.
So what is an English major supposed to do? I am going to try and compromise. My star ratings are going to be purely based on the frivolous criteria of enjoyment as per Goodreads (and because in all honesty, the majority of the reading I do is for fun and little else). But, in the spirit of being English, I will have some exceptions to the rule.
5 stars will mean that I really enjoyed the book (enjoyment being the main criteria) but that it there was something that stuck with me, and will likely stick with me for a long time. This will go for the unforgettable book, or a book with unforgettable lines, or a book with some of the best characters. You get the idea.
2 - 4 stars will purely be based on enjoyment. It means that the other criteria that I like to look for were not really touched upon, or were nothing new or special. Or that if they were, I just did not enjoy the book.
4 stars mean I really enjoyed reading it.
3 stars mean it was OK.
2 stars mean I did not enjoy it and it was bloody lucky I didn't DNF it.
1 star will mean that I hated it and found some theme or idea 'ill-thought out' (this will include everything from racism, to gender bias, promoting negative relationships etc.), that it suffered from extremely poor writing or other things that make my toes curl and my brain scream at me to stop reading. There are some books that I will DNF and rate 1 star for this reason.
2 - 4 stars will purely be based on enjoyment. It means that the other criteria that I like to look for were not really touched upon, or were nothing new or special. Or that if they were, I just did not enjoy the book.
4 stars mean I really enjoyed reading it.
3 stars mean it was OK.
2 stars mean I did not enjoy it and it was bloody lucky I didn't DNF it.
1 star will mean that I hated it and found some theme or idea 'ill-thought out' (this will include everything from racism, to gender bias, promoting negative relationships etc.), that it suffered from extremely poor writing or other things that make my toes curl and my brain scream at me to stop reading. There are some books that I will DNF and rate 1 star for this reason.
So what does that mean for anyone who follows my reviews either here or on Goodreads? It means absolutely nothing. All the important stuff will be in the written review - although I am not really a fan of writing rigidly proper reviews (I have enough of them at school). It also means that I will forever look at ratings such as Vonnegut's 3-star rating for Slaughterhouse Five and cringe with disapproval at myself.
Maybe I will change this in the future. I will give it a year and see how this system works for me.
Picture nabbed from here.
We do think along the same lines :) I like your system, I feel like I'm still a bit all over the place when it comes to deciding how many stars to give things.
ReplyDeleteThis system is still a bit all over the place, or at least it feels that way because I still feel that judging on enjoyment is frivolous. But, I don't know what else to do. Maybe in the big picture, liking a book is the most important thing anyway.
Delete