My dad asked me the other day, How do you rate books?” This is an interesting thought, I’ve got a system for rating but I never really thought of it into great details. I’m not talking about my 1-10 scale that I use but what factors determine the rating. So I thought I would brainstorm my thoughts into this blog post. When I finish reading a book I often got to Goodreads, mark the book as read and give an initial rating of the book; this is basically my feeling of the book at the time of finishing the book. But I often spend some time thinking about the book and how I would like to review it (yes, that’s my excuse for always being over three reviews behind and I’m sticking to it).

While thinking about how I want to review the book I often look at some key elements. I normally have a think about the plot, writing style, characters, grammar, research, my personal experience, insightfulness and any other elements that should be factored in. But should I have a standard criterion or should each rating be based on a tailored scale for that book? I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I feel like while I really liked the parody novel Fifty Shames of Earl Grey, I could never put it on the same rating criteria as Crime and Punishment.

I think the fact that I’m trying to explore the different genres out there a rating template would never work but I should look at some key elements no matter what the book was and I think the main ones would be plot, characters, style and my personal experience of the book. These for elements make up my end rating; I often change the rating of a book when I finish reviewing it.

 The problem with ratings are the fact that they are very personal and when looking at your reading list as a whole some books shouldn’t be considered to be on the same level as others. But should you review a book without a rating or is adding a rating just a good way for people to quickly look at what you thought of that particular book?

I would love to hear people’s thoughts on ratings. I know most people have different scales and ways of picking the final rating so please tell me about your process. Also if there was ever a standard criterion for book ratings what would you put on it. For example if you to break down the characterisation, would you look at believability, personality and so on?