HI, people! :)
I’ve been thinking to put this up on my blog since forever but
never really had a time to write it down and post it here. Now that I finally
had the time, I will let you in on my little secret of reviewing and rating
book.
Before
I began reviewing on my own, I used to wonder how people review and rate books.
What do they put on their reviews? What makes them rate several books with five,
four, or even one star? I read a lot of reviews from professional reviewers to
amateur ones and learn that everyone has their own style to review and rate a
book. And now I want to share how I do mine. This article written below hopefully
will give some understandings on my review and rating system as to clear any
confusion that might come across when you read my reviews.
How I Review My Books
Lately I try to adopt a habit of reviewing every book that I read
as I become more and more careful in picking books that I really interest to
read and review. So when in the
future you know that I read certain books on my Goodreads status but you cannot
find my review about them then it would mean the books totally do not grab my
attention (good or bad) like others do, or I’d probably too busy to review
them.
‘I believe reading is a joy and reviewing
it is the way to share the joys with others.’
Holding on to this principle of mine, I try to review book as
careful as possible. I am always honest within my reviews though sometimes
honesty is not always what people want to hear. So I try to be detailed on all
of my reviews as to cover both sides of the books vastly, good and bad. Even
when I do not really like the book, I always manage to find little details
inside it that I find good. This does not mean I make up things; I am just
honest and detailed like that. Just remember that almost everything in this
world is made of good side and bad side to shape a whole thing as one. So in my
opinion there is really no such thing as bad
book. You just have not seen its good
side.
My reviews contain my sincere opinions about every aspect of the
books along with honest thoughts from my personal experiences as a reader. Sometimes
I put my own version of brief synopsis of the books on my reviews, but it is
not something that I always do. I love to put my reviews in words than
pictures or gifs, but when I do include pictures or gifs, it is just to
emphasize my feeling and for fun purpose only. I write long reviews and short
reviews depending on my degree of laziness at the moment and how excited I am
about the book.
There
are some reasons for me to really love
a book:
- Smooth writing style,
- Unique plot,
- Relatable characters, and
- Meaningful message(s)/lesson(s) implied.
How I Rate My Books
I used to give a lot of 5 stars during my beginning year of
reviewing books. But as time goes by, I am thinking of being fairer with my
‘stars’ as majority people on Goodreads notice a book from its rating.
As per 2015, I started to get better with my rating system. And
those reviews that were rated fairly in my opinion, I put them all here in this
blog. So you know now why I read a lot of books on Goodreads but not many of them are presented in this blog.
Like other reviewers, I adopt 5 stars rating system. Or as per
July, it would be 5 flowers rating system (I am using flower icon
from icon100.com)
(UPDATE! I'm using book icon now per October 2015 :
from Down to Earth Icons)
(UPDATE! Since January 2016 I'm no longer using any kind of icon as rating symbol, lol~)
But unlike other people who would give two or even one point for books they do not like, my lowest rating is three point. I have my own reasons for this.
from icon100.com)(UPDATE! I'm using book icon now per October 2015 :
from Down to Earth Icons)(UPDATE! Since January 2016 I'm no longer using any kind of icon as rating symbol, lol~)
But unlike other people who would give two or even one point for books they do not like, my lowest rating is three point. I have my own reasons for this.
Besides reading, writing is my other favorite things to do in my
spare time. I always dream to be a writer even though my writer block is bigger
than my passion most of the time. I also do not have enough braveness to put my
finished writing for people to read. When I successfully finished a story, I
would just keep it to myself. It is amazed me to see a lot of people out there
who’s brave enough to do what I always want
to do but cannot bring myself to do;
how they are so confident with their works especially their very first works and
ready for whatever reaction public would give to them.
And that makes an automatic one point from me for every book published out there.
There are a lot of books out there for readers like me to pick and
read then review. When I decide to pick a book out of those hundreds or even
thousands of books out there, that’s when the second point is automatically added to the rating.
So, that makes each book that I read earn two points by default. And below is what each rating on the scale means in my system:
3 points
The book is
okay. Nothing really special. The characters are hard to relate. It might not
be my cup of tea or simply just a light read that does not really imply
important message within the story. At some point the book could even be
pointless from my perspective as a reader. I might enjoy the book a little.
4 points
The book is
great! I enjoy majority of the book. I might slightly have a problem with one
of the characters or minor part of the book but the well-built plot or the
writing style holds my heart tight with them. The book contains good amount of
important lessons on it. I would recommend this book to my friends but might
not re-read it in the future.
5 points
The book is
total perfection! It’s almost flawless. I love it from title page to
acknowledgement. Each character is my favorites. The lessons contained inside…
it moves my heart and soul. Reading this book equals experiencing a whole new
set of life where I learn a lot of things as if I have lived a hundred year for
it. Majority of books with this rating get to enter my ‘favorite-ever-after’
list. I would recommend this book to everyone I meet and will read it over
and over again and still could never get enough of it.
Important Note:
I
actually do not really care about the rating I give. For me rating is a
result and review is a process I go through to conclude a result
which is the rating. As people with process-based thinking system, the content
of a review is more important for me than its rating.
That is why you will sometimes find two
books with similar ratings, say 5 points, where ‘book 1’ is being tagged as
‘favorite’ and ‘favorite-ever-after’ but ‘book 2’ is only tagged as ‘favorite’.
Well,
that’s all!
Though
this probably bored you a lot, I hope you read the whole article as not to miss
any important thing. I tried to be as detailed as possible so you'll be clear on things like why I never give one or two points for books that I
dislike or why most of my reviews seem so long and never-ending.
I know that not many people would agree with how I rate and review my books.
And I truly respect their opinions just like I want others to respect mine because like I said in the beginning of this article, every one has their own style on reviewing and rating the books they've read. My only hope is that once you read and understand this article, you can better judge all of my reviews and enjoy them thoroughly.
Thank you for reading this and enjoy your visit!
Love, read, and review,
Cynthia D.
This article is last updated on January 5, 2016.
