Dangerous Hero Addict Support Group discussion

I ask because I have gone and looked back at some of my reviews, and I feel that I will honestly admit if a book is not perfect, but I still feel it worthy of a four or five star rating.

I was curious to see how other members feel about that. Will you give a book five or four stars, even though it has some serious flaws, just because you love it or feel fondly about it, despite its imperfection? For those who write reviews, do you admit to the fact that the book had flaws in your rating?

Personally, I don't feel that books or movies, or visual art has to be perfect. Perfection is unreachable since humanity is inherently flawed. That's just my opinion.

What do you think?

Lady D, you've just said it. I think "perfection" is in the eyes of the beholder. My perfection and yours aren't always the same. The books I love and give 4-5 stars may be a 1 star for someone else and vice versa. But I'm totally okay with that, and the disagreement/discussion makes reading fun and interesting.

Yes, I mostly rate books according to entertainment value. If there are flaws who cares?! However, if the flaw is so great that it beats me over the head then I will take off a point for that.

I'm pretty lenient with my ratings...if I enjoyed it despite its flaws, I will definitely still give it a high rating. I rate mostly on my personal enjoyment of the story. I try to put the things I didn't like in my reviews, but oftentimes I write them immediately after finishing, and if I really enjoyed the story, they're just not on my mind.

It depends upon how serious the flaws are. I mean if it's supposed to be a scary story and doesn't even give me a twinge of the heebie jeebies then the story failed and I won't give it five stars. If the characters are good and it's written well and a whole bunch of other things are done right then it'll get three...maybe four stars.

I'm stingy with the stars though. I only have a handful of books rated five stars because there has to be this intangible wow factor to take a book into the five star zone. Most books are good but don't have what it takes to get those extra stars. Doesn't mean I don't love the books to death though.

I don't look for perfection in a book. I will give a book a rating that I think it deserved, according to how I felt about the book.

I'm a writer and I know my stories have a lot of holes in them.

When I read, I don't look for errors, even though I may see some in a story.

It's the story that I am looking for and not flaws.

Just because a book is flawless, it doesn't mean it's a 5 star book.

I am fairly lenient with my stars as well, a book doesn't have to be perfect for it to gain 5 stars, it just has to be perfect to me. Even if it does have flaws but I still loved it it is likely still to get 5 stars.

I also find myself rating different genre's differently, I have often found that 4 stars for one genre is often not comparab;e for 4 stras for another

I agree with everyone above; I'll still rate a book with 4 or even 5 stars if I love it, despite its flaws. It can have plot holes, TSTL heroine, big misunderstandings, slow start, but if I end up loving it, it'll still be at least 4 stars for me.

On the other hand, I do try to mention these flaws in my review if they're too glaring, so as not to give the impression to possible readers that it's a perfect book, so they'd know what to expect.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I have another question for you.

Do you go back and change a rating on a book later on, or do you stand by the rating you gave it, even if there are outside factors that have pressured you to think differently about a book? If you have changed ratings, what made you do it?

I tend to stand by my ratings.

I have gone back and changed ratings before. Sometimes, especially for books I read previous to Goodreads, I will read a review written by someone else and it will bring back truer feelings I had about a book or make me look at some aspect of it in a different light.

Yes, I have. There are times when I have thought about a particular book and realized I liked it more or less than the rating I gave it and have gone back and revised my rating. This has only happened a few times. Recently I realized I was comparing books to the author's other works and not on its own. I was therefore rating certain books lower than they should have been. Other comparable novels by other authors were getting higher ratings and I didn't like them as much.

Reviews are subjective and entirely based on your experiences while reading. There are books that I rated 10 months ago that today I don't even understand why they got a high rating.

A long time ago, I read Stephen King's the Dark Tower series. I read these books on an old rickety commuter train from the 1940s. The trip ended in a dark tunnel for about 15 minutes of the ride. The atmosphere enhanced my reading of these books. I would have rated them a 5 right away. Today, I don't read Stephen King at all.

Other things influence me as well. If I read a really bad book then a mediocre book, I may give the mediocre book a higher rating just because the bad book was just that bad.

In the past, I have changed a Suzanne Brockmann's book from a 3 star to a 4 star, because although the story wasn't up there for me, certain characters were.

I tend to like some of Suzanne Brockmann's characters. I'll rate her books according to the characters that I like.

For example. I love Sam Starrett, he's my number one hero period. I'm a big fan of Sam Starrett.

Say he was in a future book - another hero's book and the story was a two for me. I'll give that book another half star or even star, because of Sam Starrett. I never get tired of reading about him.

Yes, I sometimes change my initial rating of a book. I think that if I've rated a book with 5 stars, it should be able to stand the test of time. If I find that 6 months or a year later I don't remember half of it or I'm comparing it unfavorably to other books I've read, I will lower the rating. At the same time, if I find that I think of a 3 or 4 stars book for long after I'm finished or feel like I want to re-read it everytime I see it, I will raise the rating.

I refrain from changing the rating in books that I read many years ago and thus I don't remember them well enough today to give a more accurate rating to them. I leave them the way they are, even if I'm raising my eyebrows at some of my own ratings:)

I don't look for perfection by any means...I love imperfect books, lots of them. However, my biggest pet peeve is spelling errors. I will rate low for an excessive amount of misspelled words. I can understand a few here and there, but when it's pervasive, I can't excuse that. 1. I'm buying this piece of work that you've put out, and I expect a certain level of standard to be met and 2. Just plain basic self pride. When you complete a project at work and present it to your boss, you've more than likely read it, reread it and then read it again. You want to present the best version of your work that you can, right? I think the same applies in writing and publishing a book.

Here's an example of a book that had a consistent misspelled word, but I overlooked that and rated based on the entertainment it offered. It was a pretty good book.



Every single time the word 'quite' was used it was spelled 'quiet' :-)

I would have found that irritating as well Bekah, consistant spelling and grammer errors bug me, and if it is too bad ruins teh whol experience I have found.

I do change my ratings sometimes, I have found that my taste has changed over time, so when I first read something I may have really liked or disliked it, but when I have reread it my opnion has changed and so I re rate it. Also if I find that I like on book over another but the rating may not reflect that I will change it.

I must admit when reviewing a book I try to look at it in a balanced way. You can say you loved a flawed book for a particular character. What I don't like on this site is the fact that you can't give half stars. Sometimes its better than a 3 but not quite a 4 and I find that frustrating.

I wish we could give a half star too Gem. If I am adding a 1/2 star. I state the books true rating in my review.

Yeah, and I usually mark down in that case. I also state that its really a 3 1/2 star rating

I wish we could use fractions in our ratings too. I will just indicate the true rating in bold if it's not a whole number.

I try not to change ratings on books that I have not reread. I want to think I gave the rating the book should have for when I read it. If I do reread a book and it's not as good or better, then I'd change the rating. I don't think my rating systems and evaluations of books is very scientific. I might give one book that's flawed 5 stars because it resonated, and another book that was more technically perfect less if it didn't resonate. Like Pamela, I tend to rate books by a favorite author in comparison to her other books. If it didn't meet my high expectations, I will probably rate that book lower.

I find I do that too with favourite authors. And then with favourite series. Its a bit difficult if its about a character you didn't really like

I've changed the rating when I find myself thinking more about it after I've put it down. That tells me something. Either its bothering me that I rated too high or its bothering me that I didn't rate high enough. So I adjust, and then its off my mind.