A couple of years ago, I calculated my GR reading average for myself and it also was 2.9, which I similarly found unsettling. I didn't bother last year, and I was pleased to see that this year I'm at 3.3, which seems quite good. Five stars is a very rare rating for me, so given that three stars is my baseline rating, it means I had to have quite a few four-star reads (which is pretty terrific in my system) to more than offset the 20 two-star ratings I just counted up. And at least some of those can be accounted for by my ongoing challenge to read all of Wodehouse chronologically, as early Wodehouse isn't all that good, as it happens. I'll get a bump from this in itself next year, as I've got to where Sir Plum is hitting his stride.
I had only two one-star ratings and one of them was a Wodehouse (
The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England for the curious), which I take to mean that my filtering system is reasonably good or that I'm quicker to abandon bad reads, most likely both. The toughest part of GR ratings for me is that a three-star rating covers a lot of ground, from barely adequate with no major flaws to really quite good. I know some would like to see the ratings system expanded to include half stars. I prefer it this way, but I acknowledge that some illuminating granularity is lost for me at the three-star level.
I'm glad this was brought up, as I think I'll try to keep an eye on my average rating and see if I can do slightly better next year.