Last December when I was attempting to find out what my favorite reads were and I noticed that almost every book had a 5-star rating. I can’t remember what I thought when I did that, but when I look back at that list, I feel like I did a disservice to the spectacular books. I mean the ones that blew my mind. Since I had 99 percent of books with 5-star ratings trying to decide what I liked was a no-go so I just chalked it up as a lesson learned.
I made myself a promise that in 2019 I was going to only give five stars to the books that blew my mind, four stars to the books that I liked/loved but it did not leave a lasting impression for me and 3 and below for crappy books. I am using Sarah’s Bookshelves Rock Your Reading tracker, and I have it so that 4, and 5-star reads are “successful” reads, but 3 and below are books that I did not like or that I thought was just…meh.I rarely DNF ( I should work on that) but sometimes a book is so bad that what the books are saying pisses you off, and you have no choice but to burn it to save your sanity.
I have often stuck with a book that I hated because of the way my brain works. I am afraid that if I call it quits, then it is then that the book will take a turn or the best. In my head, this makes perfect sense. In reality, though it often leaves me heading straight to slumpville. There have been many times where I haven’t had an actual slump, but I just hated the book, and I felt that I HAD to read it all. This feeling was even more pronounced if the book was an ARC. I know that in reality I am not obligated to read a book, but I still feel that maybe I should have given the book more time. The most notable time that I have DNF actually a book then became angry that I could never get those hours of my life was with Goldfinch by Donna Tart It was over 600 pages and got to page 400 before calling it quits. I was in the minority with that feeling but damn how can a person write 400 pages and nothing happens?
Even then I do not want to give a bad rating, and everyone knows that anything below a four is a mediocre book. However, if I could I would have given that bird book a negative rating
So to be more honest in my reviews and my ratings II has started to analyze what I read and to be 100 percent reliable. I am hoping that by doing it this way that in December I can really analyze all my stats and learn what I like and don’t like and maybe just maybe I cam avoid shitty books. And if I can save at least one soul from having to read a book such as The Goldfinch then i have done my job.