Way back in 2008 when I first started this blog, I set up a very simple 0-5 rating system. You can find it on my left-hand sidebar. It reads:
- 5/5 – excellent, loved it, wonderful, etc.
- 4/5 – enjoyed it, really good, recommendable
- 3/5 – good but nothing too exciting
- 2/5 – eh, could have skipped it
- 1/5 – hated it
- 0/5 – didn’t even finish
I’ve been seriously considering doing away with the numerical system. I find it harder and harder to put a number to the books I read. I looked back over my 2012 reviews and more than three-quarters of them were rated 4/5.
Sometimes I feel bad when I rate a book a 3. And if you read my description, a “3” is not a bad book. But it feels like it’s a bad “grade.” I think it goes back to my time in school when we were graded A-F … a C was only mediocre.
So what does this mean? I really feel as if I should give up my numerical rating system. I noticed that there were a few review books from 2011 that I left the rating off completely.
Here’s the ugly truth – I don’t review books I don’t like. Why? Because I almost never read books I don’t like … at least not in their entirety. You can find a few DNF “reviews” on my blog. That’s what happens when I read a book I really dislike – I don’t finish it (life is WAYYYY too short to read bad books!) And the only reason I “reviewed” those DNF books was because I was trying to keep track of the books that I couldn’t get through for whatever reason.
I might keep the rating system around for a little while longer. But don’t be surprised if it disappears from my reviews and sidebar sometime this year.
The true reason I bring this up is because I want to start a discussion with you, dear readers.
How do YOU rate books you review? What is YOUR system? Do you have one written out? Numerical? A-F? Or do you just “recommend”/”highly recommend”/”do not recommend”?
I look forward to seeing how you guys rate your reads 🙂
Tales of a Book Addict 