Quote:
Originally Posted by bashfulbanshee
5 stars is reserved for books that are so good that I'm probably going to purchase multiple copies so I can leave it all over my friend's apartments. Understandably, I can't feel this way about too many books.
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My rating system, which I explained in
On Books: Indie eBooks Worth Reading (I), an article at my blog, is as follows:
- 5 and 5+ stars are exceptional books. They are interesting, well-written with few and very minor grammar and spelling errors, and if 5+, have characters with whom at least I, and usually also my wife and perhaps some friends, get involved emotionally; that is, we react emotionally to events that happen in a characters fictional world. These are the authors who inspire you to immediately buy whatever else they currently have available that you haven’t read and whose next book you eagerly look for even months after finishing the current read. These are the books that are worth buying almost regardless of price.
- 3 to 4 stars are well-written books, too. They also are interesting but may have more serious grammar and spelling issues than the 5/5+ books. However, such issues are not so serious that one can’t read and enjoy the book. These books are not particularly memorable; they are memorable for a few days then forgotten. The characters don’t involve you greatly, although a 4-star book’s characters do involve the reader at least a little or occasionally. These are the “average” books – the ones you read once, perhaps mention to someone else that they might be worth reading, and then discard. Whether the author writes another book doesn’t matter all that much to you. These are books worth buying if the price is right.
- 1 to 2 stars are the horrors of indie publishing. A 1-star book has nothing in its favor — the story/plot is bad, the writing makes a sixth-grade student look like a Pulitzer Prize for Literature winner, and the book is so riddled with grammar and spelling errors, you wonder if English is a language the author recognizes at all. Not even a professional editor could salvage the book; the book needs to be scrapped and begun from the beginning. The 2-star books are slightly better. With these books there is a glimmer of hope. These books need the touch of a professional editor, but they at least do have a good story/plot. Again the grammar and spelling is atrocious, but editorial help might fix the problem. A book with a 1- or 2-star rating should not be bought, or even downloaded for free.
I think there can be a significant number of 5-star books, especially as there are more than 1 million books published each year in the United States alone. Where I make the separation that you make is with the 5+ rating. I think those are the exceptional books, the ones that I not only would recommend to friends, family, and strangers, but the ones that I would, without hesitation, purchase as gifts for friends and family even if the genre is other than what friends and family normally read.
The problem with rating systems are (a) they are rarely explained, the assumption being that everyone knows what the criteria are for earning 5 stars or 4 stars or x stars, and (b) each of us emphasizes different factors or scales common factors differently.
I try to discern what criteria a rater has applied when assigning a star rating and try not to rely on the fact that a book has been given a 4- or 5-star rating.