The 5 Star Kid...

[xg4bx]

I should change my Amazon reviewer name to "The 5 Star Kid" because I have a habit of giving everything 5 stars. Maybe I'm just a simpleton but I either enjoy something or hate it. If I enjoy it then it gets 5 stars. I don't spend my time reviewing things I hate (which honestly doesn't happen much, if at all).

I honestly don't see much difference between 1/2 stars or 4/5. It's either all or nothing with me lol. The worst review I've given was a 3 and that's because the book didn't stink but it was a total missed opportunity.

Am I doing readers/the author a disservice by rewarding them with a 5 based solely on the fact that I enjoyed it and not any "real" criteria? I just don't see the need to critique every minor problem I come across. I'm willing to overlook pretty much everything (other than a total inability to grasp any rules of language or grammar) as long as I'm enjoying the story.

[HarryT]

Yes, I think you are doing people a disservice. If I bought a book with a 5 star review, and then found that it had grammatical or spelling errors, I'd be extremely annoyed. I expect a review to point out such issues to me.

[William F]

I should change my Amazon reviewer name to "The 5 Star Kid" because I have a habit of giving everything 5 stars. Maybe I'm just a simpleton but I either enjoy something or hate it. If I enjoy it then it gets 5 stars. I don't spend my time reviewing things I hate (which honestly doesn't happen much, if at all).

Shall we start a pool on how long it will take for his message box to be filled to capacity with invitations from authors to "please read my book?"
I have 22 hours.

[jhempel24]

I'm the same way....grammatical and spelling errors don't concern me unless the book is filled with it.

If I enjoy it, it gets 5 stars.

I do have a fine line between absolutely hating something and finishing something out of sheer determination though. If I can't finish it, it gets 1 star....if it takes me 3 weeks to get through and is only about 200 pages long (Chasing Science at Sea comes to mind) then I might give it 2 stars.

[Skibble]

I don't see everything in black and white, so giving a 4- or even 3-star rating to a book I enjoyed isn't an problem for me. Just because I enjoyed it doesn't mean it was flawless. Moreover, I don't enjoy all books to the same degree.

When I leave a review, I try to indicate what it was that made me enjoy that book less (or more) than another. I note what flaws, if any, I discovered. I know that information may be important to other readers, and I would be doing them a disservice if I simply ignored it.

Not all books are equal. Not all good books are equal. I will continue to note flaws and qualities in my reviews so that others can use the information to make decisions about what to read next, or at all. Otherwise, I might as well just be hitting a Facebook "LIKE" button.

[VydorScope]

The problem is some people have dif ideas of what "5" means.

Opinions I have seen on MR about what 5 star means:

1) OMG ITS LIKE PERFECT - SHOULD BE CAST IN PURE GOLD!!11!!11!!
2) It was a GREAT read, the plot hole(s) was/were not a big deal cause grammar/spelling was like perfect
3) It was a GREAT read, no plot issues, and only minor grammar/spelling issues
4) The story was so good I did not mind the few plot holes and grammar/spelling issues
5) I really enjoyed reading it, and don't care if it had problems because entertainment is the real goal, and it did that well.


So what i have learned... ignore the stars and look at the review text.

[Hellmark]

I rarely give something 5 stars, because there is always room for improvement. If I really like something, I'll give it a 4. I have to be really blown away to give 5.

[Jack Tingle]

My stars:
***** A classic, read it immediately.
**** Very good, you might even buy it in hardback.
*** Good, well worth your time.
** Readable, but I'd wait for a cheap copy.
* A book with at least one redeeming value, even if it's nice cover art.
Not rated - noted, but not rated because it's an anthology, or I couldn't finish it, or it's obviously good but not to my taste.
No stars (zero, zip, zilch, nada, none, goose-egg) - don't read this book.

This does not agree exactly with Amazon's stated star ratings: I loved it, I like it, It's OK, I don't like it, I hate it. I give mostly 3 star ratings, with a few 2's and 4's. Ones or fives are rare. The hardback/cheap-copy thing kind of dates the system, but the ebook equivalent is, I think, fairly obvious.

I publish my reviews monthly on rec.arts.sf.written ("Recently Read"). I've tried it on here, but never got any feedback, so I abandoned it.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[elizilla]

I mostly write four and five star reviews. If it's a 2 or 3 I don't bother since obviously my feelings aren't that strong one way or the other. But every now and then I write a one star review, usually when a book is such a turkey that I can write something comical about it.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

So what i have learned... ignore the stars and look at the review text.

That is great advice. I try and read the 1 star reviews the most so I can see what they are complaining about.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by William F

Shall we start a pool on how long it will take for his message box to be filled to capacity with invitations from authors to "please read my book?"
I have 22 hours.

i havent gotten any actually lol.



i think i'd break my habit if i came across a book that was truly a nightmare to read due to a massive amount of misspellings or had a grammar structure from bizarro world. my outrage at being ripped off would force me to.

there have been books where there were a couple misspelled words or formatting didn't properly separate the words. i just couldn't see myself knocking off a full point for minor errors.

maybe i've just been very lucky in that i haven't bought anything that was an absolute mess, i make a point of checking samples every time even if it's an established author i know. if it reads like a 1st grader wrote it, i just don't buy it.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

That is great advice. I try and read the 1 star reviews the most so I can see what they are complaining about.

true. all the 5 star reviews in the world don't matter if they all consist of "it was a good book. i liked it." wow, that's completely unhelpful. i'll post an example of a review i did. i'll cross out references to the author/book so i'm not promoting anything.

this is a review i did last month, i gave the book 5 stars because it genuinely deserved it-

"I've been reading horror fiction for many years and I don't believe I've ever read a novel involving mummies. I think most peoples exposure to these creatures has come in 2 varieties: the "meh" via Brendan Frasier and the good via classic Universal or Hammer horror films.

XXXX falls firmly in the latter category. In fact as I was reading this I couldn't help but picture it as a novelization of a long lost Universal film, I was even imagining the story in black&white.

I've followed XXX through XXX and XXX. I've even read many of his short stories in various anthologies. But by far, XXX is his most mature and expansive work to date. He absolutely nails the atmosphere, I had no trouble picturing London under attack or the battlefields of Egypt. Each character is ocean deep and each has their secrets, much like in real life. Even the mummies themselves sometimes make sympathetic characters. There are heroes but they're not the flawless "white knight" one might expect. XXX truly lets you into these characters heads and by the end I felt like I knew them personally.

The book is a slow burner but ratchets up the intensity to 11 by the end of the book. Personally I loved the change of pace, usually XXX hits the ground running but this novel is more about the characters than the action. If you're looking for non-stop gory action ala your typical zombie or survival horror novel, this book might be slow going for you until the climax. But if you want to immerse yourself in atmosphere, characters you come to love despite their flaws and a novel of classic horror I can't recommend XXX highly enough. I'm usually not a fan of slow, creeping horror but this book absolutely gripped me and I was nearly breathless by the end.

I can tell that XXX truly enjoyed writing this book. His love of the subject matter is obvious and it translates into a very enjoyable read. XXX absolutely cements XXX status as a writer to watch. XXX were mere appetizers of XXX talent, XXX is the main course. It's easily the best piece of serious horror fiction I've read so far this year.

This book is an absolute must read for fans of classic, character driven horror and I'd even recommend it to fans of pulp/adventure stories. There's a little something for everybody.

PS-Kudos to the cover artists, I absolutely love the cover.

Note for Kindle users: The book is very well formatted and except for one example of a missing space between words, I didn't see any glaring errors. I'm including this addendum because from reading other reviews around Amazon, poor formatting is the bane of many Kindle users existence (mine included)."


i try to be a little helpful in my reviews lol.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

The problem is some people have dif ideas of what "5" means.

So what i have learned... ignore the stars and look at the review text.

Me too. I look at the overall distribution graph of the stars first. Are the reviews mostly positive? Mostly negative? Evenly distributed? That's enough to get an overall impression, and then I don't pay so much attention to a single review's star rating. I focus on the text instead.

As far as my own reviews, I mostly give 4/5 stars, occasionally 3, and seldom 1/2. My TBR list is very long and would take me years to complete. In fact, it just keeps growing.... I've read enough books to know what authors and genres that I like best. I do try to mix in new authors and books that are outside of my usual habits to keep it interesting. However, I have usually vetted these selections before I read because they were a recommendation based on something else I read or I have read reviews that make it seem probable that I would enjoy them.

[Nancy Fulda]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Me too. I look at the overall distribution graph of the stars first. Are the reviews mostly positive? Mostly negative? Evenly distributed? That's enough to get an overall impression, and then I don't pay so much attention to a single review's star rating. I focus on the text instead.

That's how I do it, too.

Also, if there are one-star reviews, I'm more likely to read them than the 5-stars. They tend to be far more informative (although not necessarily dissauding).

[VydorScope]

I tried to read all the star counts becuase you sometimes see stuff like:

(snippet from an actual review on Amazon)

...I think the Mix of Sc-Fi and Fantasy is brilliant, not like the 1 star review I think the writing style is unique and works well for the story and gives us a very intriguing point of view from the main character...

That reviewer get it 5 Stars. I think if you only read 5 star, or only read 1 star, you miss part of the picture.