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5 - 4
4 - 32
3 - 29
2 - 6
1 - 0
3.479. Probably a little high, but I've only had three 1 star books over the last three years. I research books I read a lot and I tend not to abandon because I generally believe there is something I can get out of the book before I even start it. If it's really only a four star scale then 3.479 is about midpoint between 2 and 5.
The problem I have with a five star scale is that it limits sorting things out. Not all four star books are equal. Depending on what I was thinking about that day with respect to the book could cause it to be a high three instead of a low four.
Detroit: An American Autopsy was better than Glimpses was better than Broken April, but the first two got four stars and the third got three. In my arbitrary rating system. Detroit got an 8, Glimpses got 7 and April got 6.
There is lots of scholary literature on the problem with limited scales (five-point versus seven-point versus more-point). The consensus tends to be that smaller scales are easy to implement, but users are often forced to choose the next best option. The book was actually a little less than average, but it comes out as average since two seemed too low for the book. There is a diminishing return though. Adding more points will create confusion. Seven point scales seem to be a pretty nice balance at times. I use a nine-point for mine here, but that is broken out as follows.
9 I cannot recommend this book enough (if one is interested in the subject)
8 and 7 varying levels of really good
6 and 5 varying levels of average to decent
4 and 3 varying levels of poor
2 and 1 varying levels of literary atrocities
It lets me bucket things in the five categories, but gives some leeway to say this was more enjoyable than that. In the end, I want to read books that get 8s and I want people, if they look at my ratings, to understand which books are higher within a given category.
Now that I've bored everyone, I shall go back to the junkyard and reseach more books to read.
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