My rating scale on GoodReads

Recently it happened that I read a book and rated with 4 stars on GoodReads, but later I had to change it to 5 stars. According to my own rating scale (invented by me, for me... and well, for my brainy readers like you), I had to raise the rating.

What happened? Why did I raise the rating?



My wife and I read a book to check if it was appropriate to give it as a gift to an 8-year niece. I really liked the book, and so we gave it away. But look what the things are... when we saw it at a book store a couple of months later we bought it again. How can I leave at 4 stars a book I bought twice?

Definitively, rating a book is a hard thing to do because for starters, even if we try to be objective, we can't be! We rate from subjectivity. When we give a comment about a book almost all of us say something like "I really liked it", "I didn't like it" or "It was a horrible mess". Well, maybe the latter is something I would say.

Very often it turns out that we are not experts in the matter to make a judgment. For example, if I read a book about interview processes on big TI businesses, it turns out that I haven't been on enough interviews to know if the book lacks or exaggerates on advice, then all I can say is if it was useful or not FOR ME. Something similar happens with fiction/fantasy books where the scale is of course more tilted to the subjective side.

My rating scale.

And now, here it is the rating scale that I have found effective FOR ME. It's true that it is still a subjective list, but ¡hey!, I never said that my scale were based on adverb count or broken grammar rules. Or did I?

In any case, if any of the phrases in the list comes to my mind when reading the book then I'll rate it accordingly.


1 star:

• To see the grass growing would be more fun.
• I could have used better the money I spent buying this book.
• Treats the subject too superficially and didn't warned about it.
• It's a complete fraud / I feel cheated.

2 stars:

• The book it's fine, just like that.
• It has interesting points but in reality is not good but it is not a total waste of time.
• Don't get or lose any much by reading it.

3 start:

• I liked the book.
• I learned a few things.
• Made me think/reflect about something.
• I copied some of the phrases.

4 stars:

• The book is really good.
• The story is fun.
• Made think/reflect a lot.
• I learned a lot of things.
• I'll recommend it to other people.

5 estrellas:

• I learned really really much from this book.
• Definitively more people should read it.
• (if I read it as ebook) I'll buy the physical book for my library.
• I'll read it again in the future.
• I already read it but I'm reading it again because of nostalgia or enjoyment.

How is your rating scale for your reads? Which books have you read again because of nostalgia? Which book did you find fabulous but some of your friends told you that is wasn't worth it? Tell me!, We are here for this.

Greetings!