Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Revised reviewer ratings

I've become increasingly dissatisfied with my ratings system over the past few months.  Basically, just about everything I review ends up in one of three boxes (3*, 4* or 5*) with the very occassional 2*.  Some books, however, just don't quite fit either 'an okay read' or 'quality stuff and will be recommending to friends' or 'outstanding, get me the full back catalogue'; some seem to sit between these - not quite blown me away, but pretty damn close; or better than okay, but not quite stellar stuff; more than passable, but not quite solid good.  There have been a few books I've wanted to give 2.5, 3.5 or 4.5 stars to.  Sometimes I've rounded up, sometimes down, and I'm never happy with either.  Yesterday, I swapped the stars at the bottom of my review of Water-Blue Eyes several times between three and four stars before finally plumping for 3 stars.  I'd have been more comfortable giving it 3.5.  It was better than many of the books I give 3 stars, but not in the same category as the books in the 4 star range.  So, from now on, I'm going to experiment with a slightly new rating scale and see how I get on.  Hopefully it'll provide a more nuanced summary assessment that differentiates books a bit (rather than 80+% of my reviews being either 3* or 4*).

1 comment:

pattinase (abbott) said...

Every movie I review falls between a 6.5 and 7.5-I try not to see any really bad movies and I am hesitant to be too approving. So what's a fellow or gal to do?