Sunday, October 11, 2009

Blog Ratings

As I’m going through and catching up on my reviews, I have noticed that I really need to define what my ratings mean. I use a scale of 1-10 because I feel like the traditional 1-5 is too restricting, and 1/2 ratings are awkward to me. But the number I assign is usually a gut reaction, and so not really consistent in any way. So I thought that actually getting these down may help me regulate my ratings a little better. So from now on, here’s what each rating means:

10- The best of the best. This book was excellent, I loved it. This rating is given to books I want to read over and over again, those I consistently recommend to others, and those that I think about frequently.

9- I enjoyed the book, and would love to reread it. However, these books have something missing that make them less than a perfect 10.

8- I did enjoy this book, and would recommend it, especially if you really like this type of book.

7- I liked it, but probably won’t read it again. These books may also be ones that I didn’t like as much, but have great illustrations or design to make the book unique.

6- Not a bad book, but it had some flaws. Won’t be reading again. However, you might like it if you like that sort of book.

5- It was okay. Had both good and bad to it.

You’ll notice I’m not going lower than 5. That’s mostly because I am so busy that if the book didn’t merit a 5, I won’t be talking about it. I have better things (and books!) to spend my time on. In fact, I’ve never even rated a book as a 5 before on here.

And here’s another thing about ratings. Sometimes I may rave (or trash) a book and give it a rating that doesn’t quite match this system. This is partly because I know that others have different tastes than I do. A book I love, someone else might hate. So although I’m trying to regulate things a little more here, I still reserve the right to assign those gut reactions.

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