The Rating System

Where are the Stars?

Why I don't have a rating system!

Rating systems, rating systems, rating systems! Whatever the system, rating systems are something that people use to assign a numerical value of worth to a subjective opinion. 

Are they right? Are they correct? I don't know.

There is a lot of talk amongst book bloggers about the value of review systems, and I think quite a lot don't feel that they are useful. 

Now, on the flipside there are others that do feel that they give a good indication of the quality of a story.

However, I fall into the former camp and you will notice that there is an absence of stars on the reviews that I write. I simply don't want to use a rating system. I would rather write the review and let you the reader, decide how you rate the book.

I use a rating system when I write on Goodreads, I tried to explain it. However, when I give a book three stars from their arbitrary rating system, most people think that this is an average book. However, that is not true. In my system, that is a good book that I want to read the rest of the series, but this is not captured and unfortunately the poor author who has put their life and soul into this work that they have let loose into the world sees that product of their blood, sweat and tears is tagged as 'average' when this is not the case. 

Now we could argue that there is no place for star systems and that people should get over it, but if you are an author, I don't think you can read all the reviews that people print, so a quick skim of the stars tells you what you need to know. So, that is why I still use stars on Goodreads. 

Lots of book bloggers have tried to explain their systems and TheBookInHand.com has gone insofar as to introduce a system that uses a scale ranging from 'buy the hardback' (the ultimate affirmation that you love the book) to the 'get it out of the Library' (which equates to don't spend your money). Which personally, I really like and think it's a very comprehensive approach to describing how good a book is. Let's be honest right, at the end of the day, we look at these rating scales in order to determine whether we are going to spend our hard earned cash on books and whether they are worth it. So, I do encourage you to have a look at that page and if you want to apply it then you can just remember that this is The BookInHand.com system not mine

For me, I write a review, you read it and you make your mind up, so I hope you enjoy the reviews!