2015 Reading Challenge [Closed] discussion

I rate books based on my pleasure while reading. For example, if there's a good plot, but the narrative is a bit hard to follow and I have to reread a bunch of sentences, then I'll probably give the book about 3 to 4 stars. I do not rate books based on the writing techniques, or it's a classic, or whatever else. I find that it's easier to rate things based on your pleasure, because then you don't have any prejudice if the book's famous, or what have you.

I always rate books on how I enjoyed them. I'm not the best one to judge how well something it written, I just know what I like and what I don't.

I rate by pleasure too.
Though I find that if something is poorly written, it's hard for me to follow along without rereading whole passages, which then ultimately reduces my pleasure.

Grace wrote: "I rate books based on my pleasure while reading. For example, if there's a good plot, but the narrative is a bit hard to follow and I have to reread a bunch of sentences, then I'll probably give th..."

I 100% agree, if I enjoy a book then I typically rate it 4 or 5 stars, if I only enjoyed parts of it then I'll give it like 3 or 4 stars. If I loathe a book and just find it so lacking that I can't finish the book I give it 1 star...I don't recall ever giving anything 2 stars haha

I rate writting style when it's really messing up with my reading. Like when the author uses nonsensical words, or repeats words and it just sounds weird. There are just things that will make me stop reading and be like "what the hell?". But I usually don't do that if I read the book in English (unless it's so bad that even I see it), because then I usually just think that it's not the authors fault, that their just using an idiom or a sentence structure that I've never heard before.

I rate if I enjoyed or not the story, the quality/originality of it, the world building and the characterization (lately this one became very important for me, I'm tired of shallow or annoying characters).
I rate too the writing: it's easy to read, immersive, smooth with free flow or heavy, filled with boring or useless descriptions/paragraphes, etc. Sometimes, there is something about it in particular, like being a page turner, making me feel everything or when words are dancing.
I try to tell about all of this when I write reviews, without long descriptions and spoilers.

I can add a star for something really well done and remove one when I disagree totally with something (like detailed torture scenes, approved racism, over bulling characters...).

My rating system:
* This was a mistake, writing this is as wrong as reading it.
** Several things are ok, but overall I didn't enjoy the book.
*** The author did good things (writing, story, characters, world...) but some important things could be a lot better. The reading was not fully pleasant.
**** The book was good, nothing is really bad or average, I enjoyed it.
***** The book was great. Everything is almost perfect, I liked the characters, their relationships and how the author told the story.
****** I will re-read this over and over because I miss the world or the characters (it's my "always and forever" shelf).