My Book Rating System Explained


Deciding how many stars to award a book used to be really difficult for me. Because when there's only five levels to choose from, things get complicated. A book may deserve a 4 star rating for its characters, but a 2 star rating for it's plot and pacing. Or it may deserve 1 star for it's plot and pacing, yet 4 stars for the writing quality. So I quickly devised a little strategy to make book rating so much easier, and today I thought I'd share it with you guys. I know that sometimes I'll review a book and people have questioned my star rating based on the review, so hopefully this post will clarify things.


I actually work out the star ratings in quite a logical way. Each star represents one element of the book, aside from personal enjoyment, which earns two stars. I break it down into characters, plot, writing quality and then personal enjoyment for the final two. So, for example, The Maze Runner by James Dashner earned 2/5 stars from me. Broken down, it equals:
 
0.5 stars for character development
0.5 stars for plot
0 stars for writing quality
1 star for overall personal enjoyment.
 
Another example is Looking For Alaska by John Green. I gave this book 5/5 stars, so broken down it was made up from:
 
1 star for character development
1 star for plot
1 star for writing quality
2 stars for overall personal enjoyment
 
I've found it so much easier to rate my books through this system, as it leads to a more all-round rating without my feelings getting in the way. Because sometimes I've read books that I've enjoyed for whatever reason that might have a rubbish plot. Or I might absolutely adore the characters but hate the plot and writing. This way things just even out to be more accurate.
 
I hope that you liked this post, and that it was straight-forward enough to understand! How do you rate books for your book reviews?
 

5 comments

  1. This is such a great system! I always struggle to figure out the best way to rate a book but I might have to implement something similar to this xx

    Charlotte / Colours & Carousels

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! It's so much easier for me now x

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  2. This is such a good system! I always find it hard to compare totally different types of books, but breaking everything down would definitely help :)

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  3. Oh, this is a really good system! Breaking it down definitely helps, because as you said, certain things deserve more than others!

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  4. Oh, this is a really good system! Breaking it down definitely helps, because as you said, certain things deserve more than others!

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