Thinking About Reviewing: Ditching the Star-system?

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Phoebe 47413 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phoebenorth.com%2F2010%2F12%2F06%2Fthinking-about-reviewing-ditching-the-star-system%2FThinking+About+Reviewing%3A+Ditching+the+Star-system%3F2010-12-06+19%3A12%3A29Phoebehttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phoebenorth.com%2F%3Fp%3D474

Hey all.

I’ve had a crazy week (still feeling sick, unfortunately!) and will be scrambling to catch up this week. That includes 3–count ‘em, 3!–book reviews, including one of the ARC I stayed up all Saturday night reading, of Beth Revis’ 2011 debut Across the Universe.

I’ve been thinking about what I’d say in my review. My feelings are almost entirely positive (hence the staying-up-all-night-reading), though there were a few flaws in the novel I want to discuss. And so I’ve been ruminating, once again, about how I’d rate it on GoodReads. My internal debate about it–is a flawed book I really enjoyed a 4-star or a 5-star read?–has me wondering, once again, if I should abandon the star-rating system on there completely.

Here’s the thing: I write reviews because I like talking about books, thoroughly and honestly. And I use GoodReads because I adore the community on there, and how it facilitates this dialog. However, their rating system is really pretty inherently flawed, mostly because it’s non-intuitive. This is what GoodReads says their star ratings mean:

• 1 star – didn’t like it.
• 2 stars – it was okay.
• 3 stars – liked it.
• 4 stars – really liked it.
• 5 stars – it was amazing.

So the problem, here, for one thing is that it jumps from a completely subjective descriptor at 1-4 stars to a somewhat objective measure of quality at 5. 5 stars doesn’t indicate “I loved it,” but “it was amazing,” which to me, sounds more like a measure of conceptual and craft success on the part of the writer, rather than an indicator of just enjoyment.

It’s also problematic because almost no one uses the ratings this way, probably because it’s incredibly non-intuitive to have only one negative ranking. To most people, 1-star suggests that they hate a book, and two, perhaps, that they didn’t like it but felt less strongly about it. But that’s not what GoodReads tells us: they tell us that a 2-star rating–a rating less than half of the possible star rating!–indicates a book that’s “okay.”

Finally, there’s no room for half-star ratings, which reduces the possibility of nuance, makes rating a lot more reductive, and forces reviewers to look at things in a kind of black and white way that’s just not realistic, considering the varied and complex responses people have to books!

Most of the time, I follow GoodRead’s guidelines for star ratings, except, usually, for 4- and 5-star reviews. For me, both indicate that a book is very good, but a 4-star ranking usually indicates that there’s something about a book I might change to consider it ideal or perfectly crafted (“amazing”). Here, I’m usually making guesses about authorial intent and how well that intent was carried out. If a book is rated 5-stars, I usually can’t conceive of many, if any, ways to improve it.

However, this also means that there are some books that may be a bit flawed, but that I absolute love! And I may feel slightly less fervent about a book that’s rated 5-stars, despite the fact that it’s pretty perfectly written! I can’t help but think of the review I’m going to write for Revis’ Across the Universe (which, according to my usual rating style, I’d give 4-stars), and for Cynthia Hand’s Unearthly, which I recently reviewed. I really really really liked both books. I think Hand’s Unearthly was pretty perfectly crafted for an angel book. However, I’ll never love any angel book as much as I love a SF-adventure on a generation ship–because I’m a dork, because I love spaceships right down to my toes. And really, I think I loved Across the Universe more, even if there were a few flaws I’d like to discuss, and none that I can think of for Unearthly.

(Of course, sometimes I absolutely totally love books that I also can’t find any flaws in, to which I give unthinking and enthusiastic 5-star ratings without hesitation.)

I try to show these nuances of opinions in my actual reviews, which is where the meat of reviewing inevitably lies. I try to explain my biases, my perspective. I try to give readers a sense of my tastes, so that they can decide whether they, too, would be interested in a given book. And I try to think about authorial intent and whether the author was successful in light of their genre and goals. All this is nuance–I try to make my reviews nuanced, well-considered, careful.

But those stars, those damn stars, sometimes stop readers from seeing the nuance–and I can’t blame them. I’ve had readers of my reviews message me to say things like, “You only gave that book 2-stars? I’m going to skip it then.” I’ve had writers slightly tersely link to my 4-star reviews of books I really loved, then watched them squee over other reviewers’ 5-star reviews. I’ve wondered if these writers–of books I gave 2, and 3, and 4 stars, thought I was just trashing their books, despite the fact that I’m just trying to rate books in line with GoodReads’ guidelines.

And I’ll admit, part of my frustration with this is out of my constantly running internal debate about my insistence at being, publicly, both a reader and a writer. I love writing reviews, love honestly talking about books and how to make them better and when they thrill you even when they’re flawed, and what those flaws are, and what deeper thematics reveal about us as a culture, and what the impact of, say, anti-feminist strains in YA do to us as a society. For whatever reason, this dialog is important to me, and I don’t think it’s one I can have in private. This discourse–with you, gentle reader–has undoubtedly made me a better, more considerate, and more careful writer, and a more thoughtful and articulate reader, too.

But still, many writers don’t feel as I do. Many writers are afraid to openly and honestly dialog about books, particularly in YA. Many loathe the impact it might have on their careers–citing discomfort at conference panels when they have to sit next to someone they reviewed. I’ve worried about this (I’ve had nightmares about this!). But when it comes down to it, the way some writers work around this dilemma–maintaining radio silence about books they’ve read and didn’t like, as if the experience of disliking a book doesn’t exist; or giving every book they read a 5-star rating no matter how they really feel about it or if they’ve even read it; or rating them only, without discussing their reasoning–doesn’t sit right with me. I’m an obnoxiously honest person; I hold myself to rigorous standards of honesty. And many of these ways around conflict don’t sit right with my own moral compass. I’m okay with it if it’s what other authors want to do, but it doesn’t feel right for me. And, while I know that my policies about reviewing may shift and change, and that, inevitably, some authors will have their feelings hurt over the discussion of any flaws in their writing (this, I think, unrealistic of them and also counterproductive, but that’s for another blog), I wonder if eliminating the star rating might reduce that–if only because it forces readers to look at, and consider, my words rather than a reductive and imprecise star rating.

Because those words are what matters, but I realize that it might be difficult to see them when they’re beneath a one- or two-star review (for both authors and readers). When it comes down to it, while I’ve written a few reviews that are unflinchingly positive, I’ve never written one that had nothing good to say about a book. Really. Even my harshest one-star review will acknowledge (okay, grudgingly, I’ll admit) what an author does well. As reviews should! This is about thinking critically about art, not giving a thorough and unrelenting trashing.

And so it’s something I’m considering–ditching the stars, which are simplistic and reductive and probably not entirely accurate–and just talking about books from here on out. What do you think?