How Important are Stars in a Review

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I've bought quite a number of books for Christmas presents the past two weeks. I go to Amazon to see what people think, and if the average is less than four stars I give it a pass.

On Amazon, 3 stars means you like the book.

[Figlilly]

I don't pay a lot of attention to the number of stars but I do like to read what the reviewer has said, good and bad. I skip over reviews where the reviewer repeats the plot as I want the story to be a surprise. I hate spoilers. Sometimes I will review the reviewer by researching other books that they have reviewed to see if they have similar tastes to me.

One thing that will usually suck me into buying a book is if a reviewer states 'good character development'. Equally, I will avoid a book where the characters are described as wooden. Mention of grammar or spelling errors will put me off as well.

The worst rating I have given so far is three stars. I try to be positive in my reviews as I know I am commenting on someone's pride and joy and hard work. If I really hated a book and thought it only deserved one star, I probably wouldn't review it.

[ficbot]

If the book is truly worth less than three stars, I don't finish it, so I don't usually review it In my reviews, I try and include information on WHY I did or did not like a book. I view it as helping other readers find books they may or may not like. I feel no obligation to the author, per se; it is the readers I review for.

[Rich_D]

I don't read reviews. If someone recommends a new author, I'll check the book out at the library, skim a chapter at a bookstore or download a sample and base my decision on that.

[disney_mommy]

Like SeaBookGuy, I ignore books with 1 or 2 star ratings. If it has a 3 or 4, I will read the reviews, both good and bad, to decide if I would like to try it. If so, I will get a sample. So in the end, star ratings matter to me.

[wallcraft]

I find that the distribution of the stars is key. I don't mind if there are lots of 4-5 stars and lots of 1 stars, because I can read the reviews to see if I am likely to be in the 4-5 star group, but if the stars are evenly distributed and I don't know the author's work I give up.

[Shazza]

THANK YOU everyone for your thoughtful comments. Sorry it has taken me so long to get back on here, I swear I checked a few times and did not see any comments. But then again I was having some probs with all social media stuff. Urggh.

Love you guys! Your comments are really helpful and I am very grateful you took the time to write them.

Sharon

[snipenekkid]

Originally Posted by Shazza

Just had the first review of my book and I'm very excited! Grace Crispy from Motherlode gave me three stars. She caught the essence of the book, liked some parts, didn't like others and wrote a very thoughtful review.

I couldn't be happier.

Would love to hear the thoughts of ereaders on how much emphasis they put on reviews in general and starred reviews in particular.

excellent understanding of how ratings based on a 5-star system should work rather than people equating it to a 10-pt/10-star system. Basically even a 10-star system should mean that an average book would rate 4.5-5.5 and in a 5-star system I would tend to say between 3-3.5 even though 3 is right in the middle.

I recently had an exchange on an Amazon product where I tried to get across that the constant need to gush over a product ruins the value of any rating system since gushing is basically using hyperbole in the evaluation of the average. To me if a product, in your case a book, delivers as expected, nothing more nothing less and I found it worth a read, then a solid 3-stars is what it gets. After that as my water-line, I add or subtract if I find a product better or worse than hoped or expected. Giving a product a "perfect" score for just doing what it is supposed to do dilutes the ability to differentiate the exceptional product from those which just do the job. Of course this is where the showing the entire distribution of ratings could be argued as important to useful evaluation of a given product. A polarizing product could engender lots of 1's and 5's which is why the average rating is often not all that helpful.

But I feel people in the current and past couple generations have been surrounded by the idea of gushing praise for the average or just for trying. This has resulted in their developing a somewhat distorted sense of achievement as well as value. It's one of my pet peeves about participation "awards". There is value in not being given a ribbon just for showing up.