My Personal Rating System

I am a new reader, and I am trying to get into rating as well as writing reviews for all of the book that I read. I‘ve seen a plethora of rating systems from alpha to numeric each unique in their own way. I am writing this, so the people who follow this blog can get a accurate representation of what I think of a book based off the rating alone. I’ll also try to include (a) book(s) that I have included in the rating.

The person who I think my rating system most reflects is a star version of Still Waiting on My Satyr on YouTube. (Note I do use Goodreads because I know that it is the most popular book tracking a reviewing apps, but I do utilize .25 intervals of stars, which aren’t accurately reflected in the app)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0XJ3gVPG9k

This blog post is also inspired by @zazainwonderland on instagram

DNF

For the people new to all things bookish or for those unfamiliar with the term DNF stands for, did not finish. I have seen people give books that they haven’t finished a 1 star, but I won’t do that unless that is the only option, such as on Goodreads. This is the equivalent of a zero stars. I would give it a rating, but I don’t think it’s fair because the book might’ve changed for the better after the point I stopped at.

My First Did Not Finish:

Murder at Archly Manor is the first book I can remember DNFing. The book pacing was so terrible, and I didn‘t even get to the murder. I constantly questioned who willingly enjoyed this. It dragged and after a good bit, I was begging for the person to be murdered already to get the plot going. No sprinkles. No nothing. If this is getting published and making the author rich, let me go start on my manuscript.

Me when I DNF a book, but I want to let people know how bad it is:

One Star

This is a book that I wish I didn’t finished, or, as previously mentioned, a book I didn’t finished, but the review platform needed a rating. These books are books where not only did I have problem with the writing and content, but it wasn’t even entertaining to read. There are lots of sins a book can have, but none worse than being boring. I don’t usually have one star ratings, because I end up DNFing them. I don‘t have time to read things that I don’t like.

Two Stars

The bad outweighs the good, and I really wished I had gotten it from the library. I would not read this again, and I wouldn’t recommend to others. A lot of the “reality tv books” end up here. To explain what I mean by that term, its the same as a car crash— it’s a mess, but you can’t look away. These books are enjoyable for some reason, but the writing was a disastrous or distracting.

2.25 Stars

This book had so much promise in my mind, but it let me down in its execution. I enjoyed certain lines form the book more than I enjoyed actually reading the book.

A book I rated 2.25 Stars: Cinderella is Dead. I made a whole blog post about this book, so I am going to just link that. But the gist is that book was lacking in multiple areas except for the concept.

2.5 Star

This book was mid at best. The writing was fine enough for me to get through it, but I won’t reread this ever. I like certain aspects of it, but there were more aspects that I didn’t like.

The Nancy Drew Diaries is a guilty pleasure of mine, but these books usually never get more than three stars from me. I hate the fake suspects and the danger levels seem so non threatening, which is probably due to the series being for children 8-12 (I’m 21 for reference). I really enjoy reading the books, and having easy mysteries that I can possibly solve compared to adult or YA mysteries that take more brainpower.

2.75 Stars

A 2.75 rating means that this had so many things that I wanted to go well, but this let me down with almost all of it. I wanted to throw this book across the room, because it wasn’t giving at all. There was one or two things, but everything else can go to the trash.

I rated Cemetry Boys a 2.75. I enjoyed the idea and the cultural aspects in this book, and I enjoyed the fact that the book was easy to read through. I finished it in two days, and really it was less than 24 hours it was just two days because the time that I started. I also did a review on this book, so if you want to read that I’ll link it below.

Three Stars

It was okay and that is all. It was fun while I was reading it, but its not memorable. This wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination. I would definitely wouldn’t read this again, but there wasn‘t enough to flesh things out.

This book was okay while reading, but I don’t even remember reading this book. I could probably read it again and have a good time, then I would forget everything again. This book had so many characters and I don’t remember a single thing about any of them.

3.25 Stars

A book at this rating gave me hopes, then it shat on it. The only thing this book gave me was a cake slice of things that I enjoyed. This book has some really nice quotes that I can pull out of it, but that’s it, the overall piece failed me.

The dedication of Memphis said that it was going to be a “black fairytale,” but that was false. This book gave trauma after trauma after trauma. I had so many quotes that will go into my reading journal, but I wouldn’t read this book again. I met the author and she was really personable, but

I didn‘t get that in the book.

3.5 Stars

This is the beginning of books that I may read again for enjoyment, especially if the book is a part of a series that I love. This book annoyed me while I was reading it, and at multiple points it made me think that I should buss out my computer and type a manuscript because the people are printing ANYTHING. This book has just as many things that I like as things that I didn’t like.

I wanted to love Children of Blood and Bone, but alas, I couldn’t. This book took everything out of Avatar: the Last Airbender and kind of bastardized it. It gave us all the tropes, and some of them hit and most of them did not. The writing like the actual writing and not the content of it was really easy to read which I enjoyed.

3.75 Stars

This book was a fun time. These books usually think they are smarter than they actually are, but its in a way that the author is really trying to make the book enjoyable for the audience. The plot was easy to see from a mile away, but like I said before it was a great time.

Fantastic Mr. Fox was a crazy and cooky book that is honestly made better in the movie, which can be attributed to the style of Wes Anderson. This book made me laugh unironically, which most childrens book don’t. Ronald Dahl has amazing children’s book, and this one and Matilda are his peaks.

Four Stars

I really liked this book, but there were many things that were holding it back from greatness. This is the blanket rating for books that aren’t quite a five star on Goodreads, because they don’t do .25, .5, or .75 for reviews.

I gave The Help four stars. I really enjoyed the book, but the white savior narrative was the death of me. I felt like I was being beat over the head with stories about how many white people were secretly good during the Jim Crow era in America. There was only really two bad white people who we heard about, and I feel like that was not really representative of the horrors of that time. This isn’t surprising, because a white woman wrote this book. I decided to still rate the book, because the ethics doesn’t take away from the writing of the book. Boo to the author, but the book was good.

4.25 Stars

This book had so many things that were amazing about it, but there were some things that were holding it back from being amazing. This can be things like too much plot inconvenience, an annoying/unlivable character, or just one thing that I have comes into my mind that I would’ve changed as an author.

I liked Concrete Rose, and I recommended it to my friend who doesn’t read. The problem was some plot points were predictable, but I still enjoyed how the author did the tropes. The whole book was cute, and I didn’t read The Hate U Give.

4.5 Stars

This book was still great for me, but it had either one huge flaw or many minute flaws that bother me about the book. I’m highly optimistic about it, and I have hope that the book still get better wits more writing experience with the author. Also if I’m thinking for too long about if a book is a four or five, then it will usually end up here.

I gave Children of Virtue and Vengeance a 4 stars at first, but as I thought about it I knew that I really enjoyed the book past the four star point, but not enough to give it a five stars, hence the 4.5

4.75 Stars

This book is an amazing piece of literature, but it has one minute flaw that I can’t get over. I am still excited to see more from this (if it is a series). I would purchase this book for my collection if I borrowed it, and I would recommend this to everyone who I know, even if the person ism’t really a reader. This isn’t God tire, but it is great.

I loved We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union. This book was so insightful, and it was made so much better that the author read the book on audible. The only problem that I had was the timeline was challenging at some times. I would die on the hill of this book as well. I recommend that everyone reads this, but please look at the trigger warnings.

5 Stars

This is a GOD TIER piece of work and I will die on a hill to defend it. This has snatched my wig, and has me gagging and screaming, because it was so amazing. This book has captured my mind, heart, memory, soul, and entire being with how perfectly crafted it is. I could not objectively find a single thing wrong with the piece of work, even after reading it multiple times. I compare other books to this when they have the same premise. I will think about it for years, and I’ll never stop being obsessed about it. I will annotate this book, so I can explain how this book made me fall in love with it with every single line. I will ALWAYS RECOMMEND THIS AND IT’S PROBABLY A BOOK THAT I WON’T LOAN OUT UNLESS I HAVE MULTIPLE COPIES.