The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.
The Book Blogger Hop post image was created by Coffee Addicted Writer.
This Week’s Question
What review rating system do you employ? (Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)
I use the good, old-fashioned, but seemingly contentious, 5-star rating system. I like numbers. So even though book reviews are highly subjective and qualitative, I use a quantitative system. Makes sense, right? I think the way I dole out my star ratings is similar to how a lot of other reviewers use them.
- 5 stars — Loved it!
- 4 stars — Really liked it. (I.e., I really enjoyed reading it, but there might be something that kept me from bingeing it or having a full-on emotional connection.)
- 3 stars — Liked it. (I.e., I didn’t mind reading it, but it didn’t do much for me.)
- 2 stars — Disliked it.
- 1 star — Really disliked it.
I do try my best to be fair, especially when I rate something less than 4 stars. For example, even if I don’t enjoy a book, I can recognize I just might not be the right audience for it.
I also use stars, although it seems more and more bloggers are dropping them. Sometimes I wish I didn’t, because some books are hard for me to rate.
I’m sure there’s a more quantitative way I could apply a star rating, but I try not to think too hard about it because this is supposed to be a fun hobby. 🙂 Meaning it’s ok if it’s harder for you to rate something sometimes…at the end of the day it’s subjective to each reader.
I definitely rate books similarly to this. For me, a five-star read has to bascially be a new favorite. I rarely give one stars because usually I’d DNF and I don’t rate books I DNF.
Yea, I don’t think I’ve ever given anything lower than 2.5 stars. Most of the books I DNF are written just fine, but 4 out of 5 times I DNF something because I’m not in the right headspace or the style (e.g., written more like a classic novel) just isn’t for me.
I’ve grown used to the five-star system too. It’s a bit inevitable when you use certain platforms that promote it too. In an ideal world, I’d like my words to speak for themselves hahah
Ha, well, in an ideal world potential readers would read a whole review. But with so much going on in our lives, sometimes that just isn’t the case! 😛
I know it’s hotly debated, but I kind of like the 5-star system for a quick sense of whether someone liked the book or not. If I’m going to read a whole review, I guess I don’t really need them to tell me it’s a 7.5 out of 10, as if that’s somehow vastly different from an 8 lol.
I also like the 5-star rating system as a quick take for how much someone did or didn’t like a book. It’s helpful when I’m looking up a book while in a book store and don’t want to spend half an hour reading paragraphs and paragraphs of reviews.