Rating a Book

How would you Rate a Book? Would you want to use or see a 5-star system, a 10-star system, maybe 6-Purple Thumbs, or 3-Flowers?

Short Answer? For reviews posted on this Blog, I'm going to be using a Monetary Based rating system. That is, taking into account how much the books are being sold for, versus how much I'd be willing to buy them for. I will tend to round to the nearest dollar.

Upside? It's a good way to track my actual like or dislike of a book. With the rating I'll post what I had to actually pay (or what the average consumer would have to pay) at the time I reviewed the book.

Downside? Monetary differences and Inflation can really mess up the rating system. If you want, just think of it as a 20-point Rating system instead. Why 20-point? I don't think I've ever paid more then $20 for a fiction book. Lately I grumble when I have to pay more then $12.

Long Answer:

As long as I've been reading reviews, I've always wondered why some places use the ratings system they had. Most commonly, it's a 5-star systems, with room for haves and possibly quarters. The few times I myself took up any sort of reviewing, I adopted this 5-star Flex system as it appeared to give me wide latitude in to how I perceived things. Then I ran into the inflexibility of some programmers.

For example, I've been on GoodReads for quite awhile, a website for people to review book, rate them, and share their lists. But while I've been a participant for quite awhile, one problem I've had always had with the website is their rating system. Specifically [GoodReads] uses a 5-star Flat rating system where you can pick 1,2,3,4 or 5 stars when rating a book, and nothing else. No ability to give it a half star, no ability to give it a zero. Just a 1-star to say you didn't like something, and 2-star or above to say you did.

On the other hand, [GoodReads] does then take all these flat ratings, and aggregates them into a 5-Star Decimal Flex type system, but the like of fine control for the reviewer does tend to aggravate a little.

So, when I started to contemplate posting my reviews to my blog, of course this discussion was one of the first things I began to contemplate. If I'm going to review a book, what type of system do I want to limit myself to? At first I thought that at the very least I would use a 5-star flex system, where I could feel more comfortable giving books degrees of like. Then I wondered why I didn't just go to a 10-star flex system. It would save on the half stars are be more honest.

Then it hit me; A 10-star system mimics pretty closely the price of novels costing lately. Rating books by how much I would buy them for, is actually easier then determining what someone thinks that book should be reviewed as. It's also a lot more honest as you get less spikes in the graph for really good, but minor works.

I further tested this argument by asking a few friends to try to rate a book. Then I asked them how much they might be willing to pay. Each time, the indicator or willing to pay showed a much stronger honest answer then the arbitrary 5-star system. I think I had found my rating system.

The easy part was over. Now I just have review these novels and revisit later how well this rating system works. Simple, right?

Mid-August Book Review Update

While I continue to work on my lists and the actual Posts describing why I'm doing this and what everything means, I figured I should at least post what I've read so far this August. Especially as the next week and a half will likely slow me back to a crawl reading wise.

Engines of God - Jack McDevitt - First Book in the Engines of God of series (also know as the Priscilla Hutchins Series). Like a lot of McDevitt's novels it can take awhile to really pick up. I actually was picking it up and putting it back down so often, it took me more then a week to get through Part One. However once past Part One the book really began to gel and I was much more interested in reading it. It wasn't his first book ever, but it is still rather early and it shows in some of the pacing. However the by the end, the roughness is quite forgotten. I would still recommend this book to those who like more cerebral type novels, as like a lot of his books it's less about the Action, and more about the why. [Cost 8.00 / Rating 6.00]

Wishful Thinking - Evangeline Anderson - First book in the Swann Sisters Chronicles Trilogy, this was one of my off beat choices. I think I was trying to pick up a light Fantasy/Supernatural type novel, but what I really picked up was a romance/erotica book. Still, it was rather good. Light in the fantasy elements, they really were just there to trigger plot, and light in overall erotica aspects I would still come away and say this was a good book. [Cost 5.20 / Rating 3.50]

Working Stiff - Rachel Caine - First Book in the new Revivalist Series. This is going to have to be a down check. So the writing was good. I can never fault Rachel Caine for her actual writing as it flows decently well. The problem is, I'm starting to realize that the author seems to be giving her female characters a rather large inferiority complex. That is, her main character is often female, is often special, often has some sort of special power, and is often described as being tough. But then throughout the novels the character essentially gets beaten up, bullied, and has very little real backbone. Oh usually there is an apex point where they do kick some ass, but even then you got to wonder why the bad guys went from being normal to just being idiots during this pivotal scenes as the main character still doesn't seem any different from the beginning of the book. These characters are definitely no Sydney Bristow. [Cost 8.00 / Rating 2.00]

Karma Girl - Jennifer Estep - First Book in the Bigtime Superhero Universe. Here I had the opposite issue from Rachel Caine. Some of the elements in the book irritated me just a smidgen, such as the fact that every town was suddenly Gotham. Yet the main Character's journey was much more enjoyable to see. She also had Backbone! So I will give this one a thumbs up for quick, campy, Superhero/Romance fun. [Cost 3.00 / Rating 4.00]

Marion G Harmon - Wearing the Cape - Apparently I had a strong desire to read some Superhero based novels lately. On the plus side, I found a diamond in the rough. From what I understand this novel was/is self-published, but the editing sure doesn't prove it. By that I mean, it's good. It's got great flow, good info dump, good universe, good pacing, good characters (mostly) and some really good action scenes. Got it off Kindle for only 2.99, I say it's a steal and gladly recommend it to anyone who also likes Mur Lafferty Playing For Keeps. [Cost 3.00 / Rating 7.00]