A Guide to My Ratings

Ratings are a fascinating topic. For something that is completely subjective, few things will draw more heated discussions than ratings. Many people will lose sight of the fact that it is incredibly likely that two different individuals will not feel the exact same way about a thing.

I try not to lose sight of that, but I still feel that rating something (in this case books) can be an important exercise. It can be helpful to analyze why you feel a certain way, and will lead to a clearer understanding of what you are more likely to enjoy in the future.

The key to any rating system, however, is in identifying what those ratings MEAN. I could rate things on a scale of 1-10 or I could use a color spectrum from red to violet, but all of this is meaningless to an observer if they don’t understand what is behind each number. Or color, I guess.

Therefore, to bring some clarity to my situation, I would like to present to you Dan’s Rating Rubric.

I decided to go with a scale from 0 – 5, mostly because I don’t feel like I need a ton of granularity. Of course, I reserve the right to give something a half-mark, but I don’t know how often I’ll need to do so.

Rating 5: These books are the best of the best. For whatever reason, these books have resonated with me and hold a special place on my “shelf”. Typically these books will see me so engrossed in the story that I can’t put it down to get a reasonable amount of sleep. I would happily reread these books and will try to proselytize other readers.

Rating 4: A very solid book that I really enjoyed. I will typically recommend this book without caveats, and would try other titles from this author without hesitation. Would probably reread if it was part of a series and I needed a refresher.

Rating 3: A good book. These are probably lacking in some areas, but are entertaining enough for me to not care too much about the deficiencies. You will hear me call these “beach reads” a lot. Might recommend to others, would probably not reread.

Rating 2: Books with problems. For a book to get this rating, it will need to have some pretty glaring issues that I can’t get past. Examples of this would be books that needed more editing, massive plot holes, or something else that would majorly break my enjoyment of the book. Would not recommend.

Rating 1: Books I did not like. For whatever I reason, this is a book where I stuck it out until the end, but just did not care for it at all. There may not have been problems with the book, something just rubbed me the wrong way. I will suggest people avoid this book at all costs.

Rating 0: This will only be used for books where I invoke Rule Three. I don’t feel comfortable giving them a rating as I didn’t even finish them. Perhaps there was something redeeming in the last third of the book, but I won’t find out.

I have a feeling that this project will never see a book with a rating of 1…because if I’m not enjoying it, I will most likely walk away from it before finishing. But as I can’t just skip a number, I had to come up with a criteria for what would cause that rating.

As a fun exercise, let’s take a look at books I’ve already read and assign them a new rating (not a Goodreads rating) based on my rubric.

5/5: Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan. A tale about two thieves that are unlikely partners, this series was one that I devoured. I love the characters, the world building was phenomenal, and the audiobook features one of my favorite narrators.

4/5: Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan. Set in a quasi-steampunk setting, McClellan creates one of my favorite things: a new system of magic. The characters can take a little while to develop, but this is a very worthwhile read.

3/5: Pines by Blake Crouch. The first in a trilogy, Pines does a really good job of hiding a couple of pretty major plot twists for a chunk of the book. A quick read, and the trilogy was fairly entertaining.

2/5: Reamde by Neal Stephenson. This was a book club read, and was over 1,000 pages long. Not that I mind a long novel, but Stephenson has gotten popular enough that no editor will tell him to cut the shit. There was an enjoyable story here, but it could have been told in 400 pages.

1/5: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Another book club read. The characters are as flat as can be, and the entire novel is essentially just nostalgia porn. The characters are not likable, the story is a thin veneer over the nostalgia, and it left me feeling like I had wasted my time.

0/5: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. I enjoyed the show True Blood, and thought the books might be the same level of campiness. They were not. The writing was just not good, in my opinion, and the show had done a much better job with all aspects. So I stopped reading this one.

So there you have it! Now when I give a book a rating you have a better idea of what that number means to me.