My Book Rating System
What makes a 5 star book 5 stars to me?
Book rating is such a personal thing so I feel it’s only fair to share how I consider rating my books before you see my actual reviews!
The 5 Star Sysem
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
No notes; this is a new favourite and I probably cried. I want to return to this book again and again!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I had a great time reading this but something was missing for me. I could definitely see myself re-reading though.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
This book was fine but definitely forgettable. There are definitely redeeming qualities and I imagine people will have a better time with this than I did. I’m unlikely to re-read this book unless it’s in an ongoing series, and I will likely unhaul it.
⭐️⭐️
I should have DNFed this. Not inherently bad but definitely didn’t work for me. If I own this, it’s definitely getting unhauled unless it’s within a series I intend to persevere with.
⭐️
Why oh why did I not DNF?! (I’ve rated 5 books 1 star in almost 700 tracked books)
❌
If I DNF a book, I do not give it a rating and I remove it from my shelves and my memory.
I give books a breakdown of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 as well as round numbers because I find a 3.0 very different to a 3.75.
0.25 - little better than a round number, but nothing outstanding
0.5 - firmly in this bracket
0.75 - something was missing to tip it over into the next number rating
The general gist is that if books aren’t trending towards at least a 3.5 I should really be DNFing them! Life is too short and there are too many books out there for me to read to be reading poor books!
How do you rate your books? Is it based on vibes alone or are you strategic?