Ratings

Once upon a time, I had a post where I talked about my ratings and what they meant. I’m not sure where that post went, and since I’m adding a “new” type of rating, I’d thought I’d redo it. Let’s start from the bottom (top?) and work our way up.

Political humor FTW.

0 Stars—I didn’t finish this book. Like, I hardly EVER rate a DNF book because it isn’t fair; sometimes I’ll say why I DNF’d, because people like to know, but I don’t think it’s fair to rate it low. I don’t know. I’m weird. I also don't review DNF books on the blog, most of the time.

1 Star ★—this book is not good at all. Poor editing, poor story, poor EVERYTHING. Most of the times these books hit me in my anger department, and I most likely threw the book at the wall. Or wanted to but didn’t because it was an ebook. (don’t throw the iPad! DON’T THROW IT!)

2 Stars ★★—It was okay, but it still pushed my anger button and I wanted to break the book (or iPad, but again: DON’T BREAK THE IPAD!)

3 Stars ★★★—this is a “meh” type of book for me. I didn’t love it and I also didn’t hate it. I have no strong feelings either way over this book, and it was just… a book. Most of the times these books are the ones not meant for me, and that sucks.

4 Stars ★★★★—looooved! But I had my problems with it.

5 Stars ★★★★★—LOVE LOVE LOVE this book! Again, probably had a problem with it, but my love for the book outweighs the bad.

ALL THE STARS—you guys? This is the new rating. Only one book has received it (Shine by Jeri Smith-Ready, though if I were to go through all my reviews, A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford would also get ALL THE STARS.) But to reach ALL THE STARS I must: not want to put the book down, keep thinking of the book when I do put it down, and it makes me really think. 

I also do half stars because sometimes books fall right in the middle. :p

On a personal note...

I've been wanting to do a higher than usual, a speshul type of rating. Like Fiktshun's off-the-menu six star rating. 

Sometimes there are books that just deserve a higher than usual rating, a rating that is so rare that you KNOW the book is good if it gets it. It was five stars, before I got a little too excited and started handing them out like candy on Halloween. 

I know of three books, thinking of them, that deserve ALL THE STARS rating. That'd be Shine by Jeri Smith-Ready, A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford, and Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. Each book hit me in a special way, kept me wanting and wishing for me—they are that good. Lola's story was the sunshine on a very dark day and Cricket is the type of guy I fall for every time. Her story just deserves all the stars, all my praise for it. I love that book. 

I love dark and complicated and twisty and morbid. That is basically Eden's story, and I've reread the entire book twice (which I don't do often) and most days when the writing is hard for me, I'll pluck it from my bookshelf and flip to a random page and read. I LOVE this book, and the sequel. Just the fact that I've reread it, and read passages of it all the time, merits an all the stars rating. 

I won't talk about Shine because my review hasn't gone up yet, but you guys? This book is so good. It's different from the first two, and there's a lot of story in the 400 pages, but holy crap it's good. I loved it. It kept me up and that hardly ever happens. 

After reading Shine, I realized I needed a new rating system, and "All the Stars" rating was born. I won't go crazy, because the book really has to wow me to deserve the rating, but trust me: it's going to be epic and if your reading style is anything like mine, you'll find new favorite books.

Do you do ratings? How do you do them?