Space Opera Fans discussion

I try to always leave a review for every book I read. But I struggle with the star system. I often find myself going back and re-rating a book. Should one's personal opinion on the story come into play when rating? Or should it be down to the mechanics of the book? I'm never sure. I try to be fair and consistent when I rate a book and for me, a book that gets a lowly one star rating is usually due to very poor sentence structure, grammar, etc. Even if I don't enjoy a story I try to be fair about judging it though it isn't likely to get as high a rating as a story I really enjoy. But the more you read, the more you have to compare which can change views on past ratings. How do you rate your books? Do you have hard, set rules? Or is it more of a gut thing?

Sarah wrote: "I try to always leave a review for every book I read. But I struggle with the star system. I often find myself going back and re-rating a book. Should one's personal opinion on the story come in..."

5 = Away with all the sex, I'm busy reading this book
4 = There's just this one irritating thing. Dave, that guy in chapter thirteen. You know the guy. Otherwise, it's perfect.
3 = Why did you have to make Dave the main character? And wombats come from Australia, not Wisconsin. And no, I'm pretty sure all people from Belgium *aren't* subhuman. Otherwise, it's all good.
2 = This book contains Ewoks, Ninjas, High Elves, Sparkly Teenage Vampires, and not one sliver of irony.
1 = You are reading *White Shark* by Peter Benchley.

For me, I think it's kind of a gut thing most of the time. Obviously I'm more apt to like a book if it's in one of my favorite genres (e.g. sci fi and thriller) and that usually has some bearing on my final rating. For example, fantasy isn't really my thing, but I read a YA fantasy story not too long back that had great characters and excellent world-building. Objectively, I recognized the quality of the story, but I still only rated it 4 stars because I just can't connect as well with witches and magic as I can with, say, futuristic tech and assassins. I also recently did a review trade with an author whose book was adventure/romance, and because I never read romance, I wasn't sure what to expect. I ended up giving the book 3 stars, mostly because the grammar and sentence structure were awful, but the adventure aspects of the story ended up holding my attention fairly well.

It really just kinda varies from book to book. I do tend go by the Goodreads rating scale, where 5 stars is "It was amazing!", 4 stars is still "really liked it", 3 stars is "liked it", and so on. Even a 4-star rating is still saying something, and I reserve my 5-star ratings for books that are not only in my favorite genres but also meet certain other desirable criteria I've established.

I'm sure some people would probably consider my ratings inconsistent, but it's just the way I do things.

I give ratings that are totally subjective based on how much I enjoyed it, and a few times I've changed ratings. I've lowered a book's rating if the more i thought about it the more it irritated me, and also I've given a few books four stars but if I keep thinking about them for months after i've read them, i'll bump them up to fives.

I try in reviews to clarify what about a book I liked so people can hopefully know enough to judge if they agree with me or not.

Incidentally I use the "compare books" tab on people's pages all the time, it's really interesting to look at areas of agreement and disagreement, and a quick way to see if I should listen to anything at all that person has to say (and if anything i say will be valuable to them. If that person is at like 50% agreement with me then i'm probably more likely to like books they've hated than what they recommend.)

EDIT: Like EJ, I just use goodreads's scale. Dominic's scale is kind of weird, I would give the 3,2 and 1 all 1s.

I rate how I feel, which has no bearing on grammar. It's ALL about the feel of the story and if it makes sense. I'm not an English major and will never be an editor so I see no reason to try to look for grammar mistakes or at sentence structure and base my rating off that.

I rate mostly by how and/or what I got out of the story. If I am annoyed at a story I might start picking it apart, noting things like misspellings and the like. And I tend to still see that when I like/love a story, but it also tends to be easier to overlook, or at least not allow the mistakes/missteps to cause a down-rating.

Course, mistakes/missteps can still cause a five star book to suddenly begin to feel like a three star book. Especially if the author has lured me in. Presented me with a lovely story. Lovely characters. Everything is proceeding perfectly. And then . . . slapped upside the head, I am. Pulled out. Angred. Annoyed. And it might even be that the "mistake", "direction of the story" that I disagreed with might have gone down much better with careful word choices.

I seem to be constantly bringing a certain thing up when this comes around, but it's the latest so it's fresh. There was a romantic scene in a fantasy book I was reading. Loved everything happening and then . . . the romantic scene moved from consent to very dubious consent. Well, it's hard for me to keep that book up at a five after that. And it was because of word choice, phrases. As in, they both were "into it" in the scene. But . . . a certain plot element got introduced for no reason which basically lead to turning the scene into one of violation and force. One phrase one way or another, and it's not that any longer.

I'm being intentionally vague as to what occurred in the scene. As that isn't important. The important part was just that some stories/books have thin edges that can push them one direction or another and those edges cannot always been seen. Heck, for all I know, I'm the only one that hated that specific scene in that specific book. I certainly didn't see anyone else even comment on that scene, positively or negatively.

So, basically, boiling it down, I rate for myself, review for myself. Both to remind me of the story, and to help me determine whether or not I wish to continue looking at a specific authors future works.

I'm rambling and not making sense. Mostly because I'm somewhat blind at the moment and late for something.

Lexxi Kitty wrote: "I rate for myself, review for myself. Both to remind me of the story, and to help me determine whether or not I wish to continue looking at a specific authors future works."

I like that idea. For me, if I gave a book a 4- or 5-star rating, that would definitely mean I'd check out more work from that author. I'm actually in the process of doing that right now with Hugh Howey. I've given both Sand and Wool 4-star ratings because I thought the endings were kind of contrived following huge build-ups, but I still really enjoy his writing and am happily continuing the Silo series.

I might even give an author another chance after a 3-star review. It would just depend on why I rated it that way in the first place, I think.

I rate a book according to how well the plot carried me along. I'm not a grammar nazi or anything, but if it's really bad I will mark the book down a star. Because I'm also an author, I rarely leave a review if I can't give something at least 3 stars just because I don't want to get into troll-wars. And honestly, it's not as easy to write a book as a lot of people think, so there's a lot of books I just exercised Thumper's Rule and quietly deleted from my 'am currently reading' feed.

I am omnivorous in my reading habits, both as a reader and a writer, so I'm pretty well versed in all the genres and tend to rate / review fairly without marking down because something 'isn't my thing.' I like it when a reviewer says 'this isn't my usual genre' in their review because it helps me decide if I want to buy that book, but there are some people who will keep reading a genre they don't like just to trash the books and make fun of them, and that's a crappy thing to do. If you don't like M/M Erotic Space Captain Romance, then try one, and then stop buying the darned things if you don't like them!

My system allows for the possibility of DNFs (books that I did not finish). Otherwise, it is just a subjective quality rating.

5 stars: best of the best
4 stars: really enjoyed, would not mind reading again
3 stars: decent quality of story and writing, able to finish it
1 and 2 stars: horrible, did not or should not have finished due to bad writing or ideas

If I know from the start that I will not like a book, I will not rate it but mark it as "not interested." However, if I start a book and find I cannot finish it, I will rate it because I am judging from the text itself and not just my preconceptions.

Anna wrote: "I rate a book according to how well the plot carried me along. I'm not a grammar nazi or anything, but if it's really bad I will mark the book down a star. Because I'm also an author, I rarely lea..."

I agree Anna. If you know you don't like a genre, don't buy books in that category. I don't know why anyone would waste their time reading something they already know they are not going to like. I find that it can be a little less cut and dry with some genres though. I'm not big on romance for example. I don't mind if it's in the story but I don't like when it is the story...unless of course it's categorized as romance in which case I won't buy it. Sometimes there is a fine line between a science fiction book with a bit of romance in it vs. a romance book with a little sci fi in it. I Don't like reading nasty reviews but I do like honest reviews. It helps me come to a decision when deciding to give a new author a try. And not always because its a positive review. I have read some reviews where the person has not liked something that has occurred in the book. Some people for example don't like a lot of violence. I don't mind a nice gritty story and that would not be a negative for me.

I mostly follow along with the Goodreads rating system, with some personal tweaks.

5 stars means that I loved this book, and at some point, I could not put this book down. It obsessed my thoughts, and I devoured it as fast as I could. I don't give a lot of 5 star reviews because I feel like they should be special. I reserve it for favorites.

4 stars means that I really liked the book, but it didn't quite grab me by the throat and force me to keep reading. This is my most common rating.

3 stars means that I thought it was good, but not great. Somewhere, there was a misstep, and it probably was characterization for me. Something just didn't work for me. I still might read more from the author, but I'll be wary about it.

2 stars means it was OK. I don't want to say I didn't like it, I see some merit to it, but it wasn't for me.

1 star means I didn't like the book. Often, this means that in addition to problems with the story and characterization, I was not impressed with grammar. This is my rarest rating.

Sometimes, if I have complex feelings about a book, I won't rate it at all. Instead, I'll try to write a review as to why I couldn't rate it. A Child Called "It" comes to mind. I didn't think this was a well-written book, but given that it purports to be a true story of extreme abuse, I didn't feel comfortable with a star rating. This is rare for me as well.

I do think there should be an element of the subjective in ratings. I know that I'm not objective enough to separate out my personal feelings from the actual craftsmanship of the book, so I don't even try. Sometimes, I love a book even though I know it's not the greatest thing ever written. It just clicks right for me in some ineffable way. In those cases, I try to qualify my review, maybe mention that this is a 'comfort read' for me, that it hits my buttons just right.

My thoughts on this are definitely still evolving. Sometimes I will look back on reads from previous years, and find that I don't even remember reading something that I rated 4 stars. To me, this is a sign that I should probably downgrade the rating to a 3. I definitely feel like memorability should play a role, but since I'm rating things right after I read them, I'm not sure how to build that in.

For me ratings are not all that difficult.
5stars goes to books that I couldn't put down or at the very least Didn't want to put down (even if I had to because it was the wee hours of the morning and the pillow was calling my name). These I will definitely read again like Ender's Game.

4stars is for books that I really enjoyed but may or may not read again. It will just depend on my mood when I finish the book.

3stars goes to books that were okay but didn't really grab me. I finished the book but odds are good I will not read it again.

2stars are for books I just barely made it through. I probably started and stopped several times, and I just don't have a lot of good things to say about it.

1star goes to books that I just really loathed for some reason. I might have finished it, grudgingly, but odds are really good that if I DNF a book it is getting a one star rating from me.

Some things that will cause a book to lose points with me are gratuitous sex and the overuse of profanity, especially the F bomb. I have read hundreds of books in my 53+ years that used neither of these, and a good number of them were best sellers for their time. Too many typos means that an editor did not do their job. A few typos are to be expected from time to time because, Hey, nobody's perfect. If the book is filled with them, though, it becomes a distraction, and that means points lost. Finally, I am a grammar nazi! If the book is filled with grammatical errors, especially choosing the wrong word to use, I will take points off. Again, a little bit is okay. I too am guilty of grammatical mistake on occassion. That is why we have editors. To catch those things. However an abundance of grammatical errors like in Poof by Audrey Lockhart and it goes straight to the bottom of the pile.

As with most others above, it's very personal, based on a complex mix of story, characterization, writing style, and, yes, grammar. For fiction, I follow Goodreads recommended ratings, with a twist for re-readability:

5 - One of my favorites, will definitely re-read it, probably multiple times.

4 - Loved it, will probably reread it.

3 - Liked it, would probably recommend it, but probably won't reread it.

2 - It was okay. I made it through, but I definitely won't reread it, and probably won't recommend it unless it's for someone I know goes for that kind of thing.

1 - Didn't like it. Probably finished it, but it was a struggle.

As for books that I couldn't stand enough to finish, I may or may not rate them, depending on how much I read and how much I hated the book.

And, yes, I will sometimes change a rating later. I try to give an immediate gut instinct rating as soon as I've finished reading, though I often wait a few days before writing a review. Later I may look at that initial rating and decide I was wrong. As Tani said, memorability should play a part.

Grammar and too many typos will definitely impact my rating, though I try not to be too unforgiving of reasonable errors. But a book that was obviously not edited will suffer.

5-I LIVE FOR THIS BOOOOOOOOOK!
4-Very Nice, would read again.
3-Has my interest. Might get the rest of the series but not a priority.
2-Not my cup of tea but doesn't mean its worthless
1-For whatever reason the book and I don't see eye to eye. Not for me.

I go by how a book effected me.

5- Has to have an almost perfectly executed narrative structure. It's prose follow a natural form of speech I tend to enjoy or are very interesting. Ideas add to my current understanding/knowledge base. It's always great to be wowed by a imaginative usage of some relevant theme floating around the zeitgeist. Fives should be so good that they will stand the test of time. For me, this is a testimonial to the quality of the writing. I also like to be able to feel a creators growth from their past books, but I have to be fair, unless I've read most of the authors works already this part of the analysis is incomplete, so it's likely ratings will change in these cases. But generally if I've given something a five and the author writes another I think was even more compelling. I will probably want to read everything this person writes as many other readers also find favorite authors.

4- Very good book that contains most of what a five requires, but might lack a one of those elements.

3- Enjoyable, but is missing more than one of the requirements mentioned in a five.

2- To many problems, maybe it had some interesting ideas, but the author just wasn't able to disseminate them coherently. Also, these books have other issues, grammar, redundancy, word usage, and sometimes even offensive conclusions. Structure is a major issue here. Most likely the climax's were ineffective due to a lack of character development,descriptiveness, introduction... Predictability? Yeah, if I've already figured the book out on page 10 and that's not the point, it's probably gonna get a 2.

1- Has all the problems of a two, and it somehow finds a way to be offensive or reprehensible. I can't really think of a book that I gave a 1 yet. It has to be really bad I guess on my scale.

Most books earn about a three from me, but the books I rate 4 and higher are what I'd really recommend as very good works. So those are my subjective rating scales. Truly, I won't write a review unless the book creates some sort of compulsion to do so. Very few books elicit such a reaction and a star scale seems satisfactory.

Pure enjoyment factor. I tend to write the longest reviews on some 2-3 star books that I felt really had potential but kept dropping it.

Criteria for my ratings:

The Good--
1: Story flows so that I don't want to put the book down.
2: Clean and concise dialogue
3: Good grammar and syntax -- not spelling and simple edit mistakes, just grammar and syntax!
4: Story, story story.

The Bad:
1: Navel gazing, pages long "in the first person's head" commentary. Shoot. Me Now.
2: pages and pages of silly dialogue
3: I can abide the simple spelling and a few run-ons but some books seem like the author was using a DOS based text editor with no spell check.
4: Story that makes me want to put the book away after 20 pages -- or worse yet, skip ahead and skim through page after page waiting for something to happen.

If an author writes pages of travelogue much like the 'Wheel of Time' I am going to put the book away, give it one star and never touch a book from that author again. :)

If an author makes me join their email list and impatiently await the emails announcing the next in a series then they get a 5.

For Fiction

5 stars = There was just something exceptional about this book for me. I don't give five stars easily. That fifth star is all about my emotional interaction with the book.

4 stars = Four stars depends on a lot of different factors.
a) Did the book had an enjoyable writing style. I like a large number of writing styles so this is not usually a big factor in my star decision.
b) Did the book make me think about important things like life, death, morality, what it means to be human, gender roles, ect, for at least a little while. I tend to think that a little goes a long way. I typically read fiction for fun. Also, important things, especially when they are about race or gender can accidentally, at least I hope it's accidental, descend into misfortunate implications, which could become a detractor for me.
c) Did the book have engaging characters that I want to see change and develop through the story. Do the characters change and develop?
d) Was the book's setting interesting to learn about.
e) Was the book's setting internally consistent, because I like to speculate, which is sort of a fruitless exercise if a setting is not internally consistent. :)

3 stars = I don't regret reading this book, but I might not read the next one by this author.

2 stars = I must not be the audience for this book.

1 star = A wall banger, something about the book bothered me to the point that I may have thrown it against the wall. (The last book I gave a single star to was one where the princess recreationally snared rabbits and then released them, in a subsistence society where she should have been worried about having enough to eat.) I list single star books on good reads mainly to remind myself not to read them again by accident.

For Non-Fiction

5 stars = Has some sort of personal wow factor.

4 stars = Communicates it's information well.

3 stars = The information the book is presenting is garbled.

2 stars = The information is hard to understand.

1 star = Is this book written in English?

I would like to write reviews for a lot of the books I've read. I only want to review books I've read or reread recently. I tend to write reviews for 4 star books, I am finding it hard to articulate about my five star books. I generally don't want to write reviews of 2 or 1 star books. My mother always told me that if I had nothing good to say don't say anything at all, and I have no desire to be attacked by rabid fangirls and fanboys.

My ratings are pretty subjective and are based on how much I liked. As well fiction and non-fiction get treated a little differently. I don't necessarily ask for total accuracy in my fiction but I do in my non-fiction.

Fiction is pretty straightforward. The more I like the book the higher the rating. Books in series are rated on their own merits so just because one book gets a five doesn't mean another won't get a three. I have read books in the past that would get a low mark because I did not like them at all. A number of them were things I had to read for school. I will probably never read another Hemmingway novel again as only one of the three I read would have gotten a three (Old Man And The Sea is a definite 1). I tend to pick books for leisure reading that I am pretty sure I will enjoy somewhat.

Non Fiction is a little different. Enjoyment is important but not the same way as fiction. It also depends on the subject. Theology for example is different from history so I look at it differently. A subject that can be debated means I want the author(s) to present their arguments clearly so I can understand and determine if I agree with them to any degree. I don't have to agree with them, just understand them. When a book is from a historical, scientific or similiar subject I expect the facts to be correct. Some time ago I read a book on the history of comics by company. The first chapter was on DC Comics and I noted so many errors of fact that I couldn't trust the chapters on the companies I didn't know a lot about. This book would have gotten a 1 rating (and a scathing review)
I am now trying to write a review for everything I read, no matter what it is. This is so people can see why I liked the book, though with some fiction that is hard to do without having spoilers and I don't want to write spoilers. Even with a decades old mystery there is always going to be someone who hasn't read the book yet.

Everyone has there own reasons for rating something the way they do. I read a review of a collection of comic book stories where the writer gave the item 2 stars, and the only reason it got the second star was for a couple of Shakespearean references in the stories. He hated the stories which were written by either Edmond Hamilton or Otto Binder. I read the same volume and gave it a 4. The key is to get to know why a person likes specific book and then from there. I recall Spider Robinson when he was the book reviewer for Galaxy Magazine remarking that a particular reader bought everything Robinson hated and skipped the stuff Robinson loved on the basis he had found out his and Robinson's tastes were polar opposites. If you have found that the one or two books someone rates highly you hated then try the stuff he or she loathes.

Usually I'm rating books depending on how much I enjoyed it from 5) a perfect and really enjoyable book to 1) the worst of the worst, with 3) as the "ok" middle rating.
This base rating can have added or subtracted one star depending on circumstances explained in my review.

Because it's really boring to listen to abstract criteria, here's my changing opinion on Basilisk Station as concrete example:

3 stars for a very clichéed start (commander takes over undisciplined crew, she doesn't seem to have much personality, and what's the deal with that useless cat?)
1 the first lame explanation of political background was the absolute low-point of the novel, almost made it a wallbanger because it sounded so right-wing simplistic
3 stars for unnecessarily convluted technobabble and too many named characters to keep track of
4 steady climb in quality because the author is actually pulling some quite interesting stuff out of the hat during the middle part of the book
5 climactic space battle, very novel
4 end score: Very enjoyable overall, but the quality was simply too uneven and there were too many annoyances to get a 5 star rating

I love this review of my book by the "Cooking Queen."

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I guess the best I can express is "I spent money to buy it and no regrets."
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Laughed my ass off

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-rev...

5 - I liked it

No other ratings since it would be simply nit picking from then on.

Personally I need the lower ratings, especially for non-fiction. I just started a book on comics and have found several errors and I am only on page 30. Needless to say I do not hold out great hopes for this one. I suspect my rating will be low and my review somewhat nasty.