To star or not to star?

[calissa]

 

One of the things I struggled with when starting this blog was whether or not to star my reviews. This is something I’m sure every book blogger thinks about at some point or another. Back in March, Renay pondered review styles over at Ladybusiness. Less recently, I recall Shaheen of Speculating on Spec Fic mention at Conflux last year that she had initially started out not including stars but had subsequently changed her mind.

Indeed, the book blogs I read are fairly evenly split on this issue. Along with Speculating on Spec Fic, a few starred blogs I read include Book Gannet, The Book Smugglers and Tsana’s Reads and Reviews. A sample of the non-starred blogs include Estella’s Revenge, Lady Business, Stephanie Gunn and In the Forest of Stories (though I note the latter still has ratings included in the tags at the bottom of posts).

As a reader, I tend to be less interested in the rating than in the details of the review: why did the reviewer like or dislike the book? That’s what determines whether or not I will track down the book. It also establishes or confirms for me where the reviewer is in relation to my tastes. Do we match up or do our tastes lie elsewhere? Where is the overlap?

Having said that, once I have a feel for the reviewer, starred reviews can occasionally be a bit more useful. If I’m looking for a decent romance and can’t find any on Mt TBR, I might hop over to Book Gannet and take a look at the five-star reviews. However, given the state of Mt TBR, this doesn’t happen to me too often.

As a reviewer, I don’t like writing starred reviews. How does one quantify something that’s so subjective? Sometimes I know immediately how I am going to rate a book, while at other times I agonise over it. I should note that even though I don’t like writing starred reviews, I still do it–over at Goodreads. Then once I decide on a rating, it feels like it’s set in stone. What if I change my mind? That’s easier to do on Goodreads or in my personal spreadsheets than it is here on the blog. However, if I’m already doing it on Goodreads, why not here as well?

Another thing I struggle with is a ratings system. Five stars is fairly standard. However, I hardly ever use the full spectrum. A book has to be pretty terrible for me to consider rating it two stars or near perfect for me to give it five. That doesn’t give a lot of range. It’s something I’ve been working on. I actually find it easier to rate something out of ten and then halve it for a five-star system.

I’d be really interested in hearing some thoughts on this issue. Reviewers, do you use a rating system? Readers, do you find rating systems useful? Would you like to see one here?

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Comments

[onewhitecrow]

I find Goodreads' star ratings useful because their data pool is huge, so you can spot a really good book at a glance when it hits the 3.7-3.8 range.

For a personal blog, however, a score out of 10 would be far more useful, since it gives finer detail and reinforces the knowledge the rating's subjective in a way pictures/stars tend to obscure. If one is familiar with the blogger's subjectivity/shares their tastes, the difference between 9/10 and 10/10 from such a trusted source might be the difference between putting it on an 'if I ever see it' wishlist and springing for a hard copy. Says I.

[calissa]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I don't usually read reviews at Goodreads until I've read the book myself. However, it occurs to me after reading your comment that I could use it as a way of vetting my wish list.

Do you follow many book bloggers?

[onewhitecrow]

That is a very strange concept to me...why do you look at reviews for a book you've already read? [pokes phrasing] Unless that's rude to ask. I feel I've put the question badly, but I am simply curious about something I can't work out the why for on my own.

No...literary professionals like yourself excepted, these people who manage to hold down a day job and read ten thousand books a year just make me feel ashamed of myself and/or that there are too many books in the world.

Hence, I suppose, my focus on the convienience of ratings - you'll always get the why in the review (Goodreads folk who rate without reviewing annoy me so much, especially if it's a good rating) but if one hasn't got the time to read an entire blog to get a feel for the reviewer, seeing their least- and highest- ratings at a search/tag click is super-useful.

[calissa]

I occasionally look at reviews for books I've already read because I find they sometimes offer perspectives I hadn't considered. This is especially helpful when something is bugging me about the book and I can't figure out what.

And it's not at all rude to ask :)

It feels a little odd to consider myself a literary professional, though I guess that is what I've become. And I still feel ashamed that I don't manage to read as much as other literary professionals (or even some people that hold down a day job).

[onewhitecrow]

Huh. Could you give an example? You're one of the most insightful people I know; I would be interested to see what sort of thing would be hard for you to grasp.

Please don't use sideways-smileys with me, I cannot parse them and find it hard to anwser comments/e-mails with them in because I get frustrated then feel bad for being inept/annoyed with people for doing normal-to-them things and run away.

You are! Besides being a God...ach, well there you go, the internet is often bad for us.

[calissa]

Argh, my apologies for the sideways smiley. You've told me that before; I was careless and am very sorry for that. I will try to do better.

An example is City of Fae. I struggled to write a review that didn't simply rip the book to shreds. While reading reviews from people who enjoyed it didn't change my mind about the book, it did help me tune in to things I could frame more positively. It is a bit of an extreme case but I hope it helps?

[moonvoice]

I generally do this on GR too, until I recently found out about 'mob reviewing' which is a habit of big groups going and deliberately leaving insanely bad or good star reviews for books they haven't even read, vastly swaying the star difference. (It seems especially common in the romance genres). Now that I've seen it happen, I no longer pay attention to GR star reviews in the romance genre. It still seems to work okay for fantasy / sci fi etc. though.

[onewhitecrow]

I am sad to hear the romance section is so prone to crabucketing...if I meet any romance readers who're also on Goodreads I will pass that on; thank you. This neatly demonstrates why the convienience of ratings needs to be tempered with actual reviews, I suppose.

[cxcvi]

So, I can't really talk specifically about books, but this question has come up elsewhere (computer games being the main thing that springs to mind).

My personal feelings on the matter are that scoring any sort of review is an incredibly subjective thing to do. It can make comparing things (books, games, etc) incredibly difficult, sometimes even if from the same person.

I think I'd prefer something more along the lines of "buy it", "wait for it to come down in price", "borrow it from a friend", "don't bother". Preferably with explaining your reasonings.

Also, something worth noting is that the byline is an important part of any review. Say for instance that you don't like a certain specific thing in books, and you give a book a low opinion because it has that thing. People who do like that thing can see this, combined with your reputation, and take it as a safe recommendation. The other way around also works, as well.

[calissa]

I think this is somewhat similar to the approach I use. I often sum up at the end with an "Overall I liked/didn't like the book" with a comment on whether or not I'd continue reading if it was a series and/or a comment on who might be the audience ("If you liked *, this might be the book for you" or "If you don't like *, steer clear"). I wasn't thinking of getting rid of this, but more wondering whether including a rating would add anything useful.

Your point about reputation is also a good one. I think it is easier to negotiate ratings when you follow a reviewer and can get a feel for how they see things.

[davidgillon]

I think with stars, or scores of any description, you get the subjective view, but without the context to understand it that comes from being the scorer themselves. Given the choice of a star, or an extra sentence of review, I'll take the extra sentence, as that has a chance of explaining context.

[calissa]

This strikes me as a bit of an either/or viewpoint. I don't feel that adding scores to my reviews would lead to me writing shorter reviews or providing less context. And the starred review I read are certainly not any shorter or less detailed than the non-starred ones.

Having said that, I'm becoming increasingly of the opinion that including stars or a rating wouldn't add much to my reviews, so why bother?

[davidgillon]

My thinking was you would inevitably be thinking 'what do I score this?' as you wrote, which would cut into the review in one way or another.

[moonvoice]

I have a problem with it in general, also because the subjectivity is so...SUBJECTIVE. I mean, for example, I can't rate every book on the same star system, I rate based on 'is this good for its *genre* in context of what is being produced right now.' So I rate m/m very differently to like high literature, because one is designed to be pulpy entertainment (did I enjoy it in the space of an hour that it took to read? Then it really deserves a 5 star rating - it achieved what it set out to do -> be pulpy entertainment), and one is designed to make you think and be provocative and have exceptional turn of phrase.

A 3 star high literature book for me is generally, quality wise, much better than all the m/m books I give four stars. But is it good at being pulpy lunchtime entertainment? No. It's TERRIBLE. But that standard, a lot of the high literature I enjoy would have to get 1 star reviews, heh.

Since other people don't know how I'm judging things, they shouldn't really trust my star ratings on anything.

Recently, I've come to see on both sides of the fence, how aggressive mob reviewing can be (both when people are lauding or belittling a book), especially on Goodreads (and Amazon). It's made me a lot warier about starred reviews. I've read books that are doing low rating wise, that have been exceptional (and I'm not clueless, I have a university education in creative writing, have won awards, etc. etc. etc. tl;dr it doesn't matter much), but due to mob influence, are only averaging around 2 stars on Goodreads. I've read books that have been *terrible* - I mean typos, bad editing (even through a publisher), repetition, basic errors, poor characters, 400 loose ends and plot holes - that have 300+ 5 star reviews either because the author bought them, or a member of a mob/group decided it was worth it and everyone else followed suit.

But ahhh, yeah, it's a tough one you know? Because I also feel like the star system shorthands something. Like, if Steph or you recommend something and say 'five stars' - I will consider reading it even without a written review.

So...

Eh I guess I'm against starred reviews but also not always and not in all circumstances it's so confusing. *screams into hands*

[calissa]

I'd not considered the differences between rating genres, but that's very true. I rate non-fiction very differently to fiction of any kind.

Is mob reviewing common on GR in your experience? I've not noticed it before and I'm not sure whether that's because I'm oblivious or not looking in the right place?

Also *hugs*. Like most things, it's complicated, isn't it?