Many thanks to the people who contributed to both the poll and to the comments.
In the light of the fact that some fellow bloggers have decided not to give ratings to the books they read, I was considering following.
But is obvious that many people find my ratings helpful and so they will stay.
Others said they took less interest in the rating than in whether I liked the book.
So I thought I would try to be a bit stricter with my selection of ratings, but I have been rating with this scheme for about 10 years now, and I think the granularity (e.g. the differentiation between say 4.6 and 4.4) does mean something to me.
My ratings in 2013 ranged from 5.0 to 3.1 on 142 books.
57 books scored more than 4.5
Another 77 scored more than 4.0
And there were 7 that scored under 4.
The average score was 4.48
My rating system
5.0 Excellent
4.0 Very Good
3.0 Average
2.0 Poor
1.0 Did Not Like
0 Did Not Finish
The final answer is that I will continue to think, at the sae times as making sure that my ratings don't feel inflated to me.
4 comments:
Yeah! I like to know "how much" you like the book.
Kerrie: I think it is hard to have a real range in ratings when you pick books you expect you will like to read. I know I enjoy most of my books because I try to find good books. It is an accident when I get a poor book. In such circumstances, most of your reads will provide good ratings. Who would want to read randomly so that the ratings stats would be more balanced between good and bad?
Yes. I also want to know how much you like the book.
When I read a nuanced review with lots of positives and concerns, issues, even negatives, in the end I want to know if the reviewer liked the book and how much because then I can decide if I want to read it and how much effort I should put into finding it or even buying it if it's not at the library. Buying it particularly as I don't do this unless I see some rave reviews.
I think that is good. I can definitely tell when you give a book that is between 4.8-5 those ratings that you really liked it. And that is useful.
I don't think you rate high, I think you mostly pick books you know are going to appeal to you. (Similar to what Bill is saying.) All of my books last month were 4 stars on Goodreads, and I definitely liked some more than others. I still don't know if I want to start adding ratings, but I may try to add something that clearly indicates a book I like a lot.
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