As another harsh rater who loves quarter stars (I think my Storygraph average is 3.7), and also as someone who mostly borrows books from their library, a book gets 5 stars when it's impacted my soul. I've bought physical copies of all my 5 stars. They are treasured art pieces on my shelf that make me grateful we get to experience human creativity. Loving your videos by the way, you're doing great work💜
I've found myself going back to palette cleanser books to reset my standards in recent years. Picking up Hyperion and Dune back to back a couple of years ago completely broke my ability to appreciate other novels until I went to a nostalgic fave just to get my head out of the clouds. I am generally a harsh critic myself but I think it comes down to embracing the fact that when something is "okay" it's correct to give it a 2.5 (or a 5/10 if that's your flavour for rating). We shouldn't be looking at a 3 as if it has somehow failed, that's a piece of media I've enjoyed but it's not doing anything I haven't seen before. Of course the beauty of any criticism is that it's subjective but I've gained confidence in reccommending books or films because if I think it's a 3.5 then my much more relaxed friends are going to love it. Turn your elitism into an asset for your friends who don't have the time to inhale every story thrown at them.
I’ve only just started reading this year but I established my rating system right away lol Here it is: 1: did not enjoy, weak plot/characters, lazy writing, nothing special 2: did not enjoy, good plot and weak characters or vice versa, decent writing, nothing special 3: somewhat enjoyed, good plot and characters, good writing, special (to me at least) 4: enjoyed, good plot and characters, great writing, special 5: loved it, great plot and characters, great writing, special *special meaning it does something other books within that genre do not usually do or does something different for me. Generally, use the quarter stars to go up from the base ranking. Basically, it had some qualities of the category above it but not enough to solidly land it in that category. For example: a 1 star book that I did not enjoy, had lazy writing, was not special, and yet had lovable characters is a 1.25. A 2 star book that had good writing, good plot and characters, felt special and yet I did not enjoy it is a 2.75.
Just to add: sometimes it can get a little complicated like it did for Crier’s War which I mostly enjoyed though I didn’t find it to be special. In that case, I map out how I would define it in each category and which rank that description belongs to, like so: Enjoyed (4), good plot and characters (3/4), good writing (3), not special (1/2) Then some math is involved. I found that simply finding the mean of these numbers results in a weird ranking (would be 2.83 here) so instead I take the majority number, excluding outliers, which is about 3.5 here and then apply the outliers. Since the outlier is only in one category, I decided to take off only .25 stars for this book. If the outliers were in two categories then I would take off .5 points. Overall, my ranking for Crier’s War was a 3.25.
I also rated Empress of Salt and Fortune 5 stars! I think I put it down and walked away when I got to the twist at the end that's when I knew for sure it deserved that rating. I usually rate books on vibes and craft: if the vibes and craft are both high, it gets a 5. But I value vibes more than craft, so sometimes a book that isn't crafted well will get a bit higher rating than a book that was crafted well but has terrible vibes. And I also don't change ratings when my tastes change, so if I rated something a 4 last year that I'd rate a 3.5 today I'd just leave it
finally another person who has given empress 5 stars! (up until now I have only known 1 other person who has). I also don't change my ratings as my taste changes. If it wa a 4 star at the time, it will stay a 4 star.
@@geenahreads Yeah like I understand taste is subjective but,,, that book was so well written I'm actually surprised that you haven't met more people that didn't think that
One problem i always had w rating systems are the bridge between Objective and subjective rating. As I've read plenty of books I did not personally enjoy, but I could definitely appreciate the writing enough to rate it highly, and vice versa. So for me, the last 3 points from 8 to ten are reserved for books I had high amount of enjoyment from. 7 and below are for all the books in general I read. For example, I loved Golden Son by Pierce Brown, and I thought the writing was exceptional. So I gave it a 9/10. I also thought 1984 by George Orwell was written fantastically, but I did not enjoy it much, so I rated it a 7/7. To be clear, this is to say the writing in 1984 is superior to Golden Son's, but I think Golden Son is a better overall reading experience. This makes sense to me so its usually how I refer things.
As another harsh rater who loves quarter stars (I think my Storygraph average is 3.7), and also as someone who mostly borrows books from their library, a book gets 5 stars when it's impacted my soul. I've bought physical copies of all my 5 stars. They are treasured art pieces on my shelf that make me grateful we get to experience human creativity. Loving your videos by the way, you're doing great work💜
Our rating system from 3-5 is pretty darn close! Enjoyed this
Great minds think alike!
Love this, our ratings are very similar. I think harsh rating is just as important as reading books without thinking too much
Periodddd I'm here for being a harsh rater!!
It’s the only way!
I've found myself going back to palette cleanser books to reset my standards in recent years. Picking up Hyperion and Dune back to back a couple of years ago completely broke my ability to appreciate other novels until I went to a nostalgic fave just to get my head out of the clouds.
I am generally a harsh critic myself but I think it comes down to embracing the fact that when something is "okay" it's correct to give it a 2.5 (or a 5/10 if that's your flavour for rating). We shouldn't be looking at a 3 as if it has somehow failed, that's a piece of media I've enjoyed but it's not doing anything I haven't seen before. Of course the beauty of any criticism is that it's subjective but I've gained confidence in reccommending books or films because if I think it's a 3.5 then my much more relaxed friends are going to love it. Turn your elitism into an asset for your friends who don't have the time to inhale every story thrown at them.
I’ve only just started reading this year but I established my rating system right away lol
Here it is:
1: did not enjoy, weak plot/characters, lazy writing, nothing special
2: did not enjoy, good plot and weak characters or vice versa, decent writing, nothing special
3: somewhat enjoyed, good plot and characters, good writing, special (to me at least)
4: enjoyed, good plot and characters, great writing, special
5: loved it, great plot and characters, great writing, special
*special meaning it does something other books within that genre do not usually do or does something different for me.
Generally, use the quarter stars to go up from the base ranking. Basically, it had some qualities of the category above it but not enough to solidly land it in that category.
For example: a 1 star book that I did not enjoy, had lazy writing, was not special, and yet had lovable characters is a 1.25.
A 2 star book that had good writing, good plot and characters, felt special and yet I did not enjoy it is a 2.75.
Just to add: sometimes it can get a little complicated like it did for Crier’s War which I mostly enjoyed though I didn’t find it to be special. In that case, I map out how I would define it in each category and which rank that description belongs to, like so:
Enjoyed (4), good plot and characters (3/4), good writing (3), not special (1/2)
Then some math is involved. I found that simply finding the mean of these numbers results in a weird ranking (would be 2.83 here) so instead I take the majority number, excluding outliers, which is about 3.5 here and then apply the outliers. Since the outlier is only in one category, I decided to take off only .25 stars for this book. If the outliers were in two categories then I would take off .5 points.
Overall, my ranking for Crier’s War was a 3.25.
I also rated Empress of Salt and Fortune 5 stars! I think I put it down and walked away when I got to the twist at the end that's when I knew for sure it deserved that rating. I usually rate books on vibes and craft: if the vibes and craft are both high, it gets a 5. But I value vibes more than craft, so sometimes a book that isn't crafted well will get a bit higher rating than a book that was crafted well but has terrible vibes. And I also don't change ratings when my tastes change, so if I rated something a 4 last year that I'd rate a 3.5 today I'd just leave it
finally another person who has given empress 5 stars! (up until now I have only known 1 other person who has). I also don't change my ratings as my taste changes. If it wa a 4 star at the time, it will stay a 4 star.
@@geenahreads Yeah like I understand taste is subjective but,,, that book was so well written I'm actually surprised that you haven't met more people that didn't think that
One problem i always had w rating systems are the bridge between Objective and subjective rating. As I've read plenty of books I did not personally enjoy, but I could definitely appreciate the writing enough to rate it highly, and vice versa. So for me, the last 3 points from 8 to ten are reserved for books I had high amount of enjoyment from. 7 and below are for all the books in general I read. For example, I loved Golden Son by Pierce Brown, and I thought the writing was exceptional. So I gave it a 9/10. I also thought 1984 by George Orwell was written fantastically, but I did not enjoy it much, so I rated it a 7/7. To be clear, this is to say the writing in 1984 is superior to Golden Son's, but I think Golden Son is a better overall reading experience. This makes sense to me so its usually how I refer things.
Person who likes to think and read explains themselves... 5 Stars.
Have you rated catch-22? its my fav
I haven’t but I think my dad has. Will add it to my tbr!
why not just rate things out of 20 tho? with you on the 5th season.
Out of TWENTY?!? I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone have a rating scale of 20 before. I don’t even know how I’d handle that 😂
I've never seen someone rate out of 20, that's truly a special rating system lmao