What makes a book 5-stars?
I was taking a look at my logged books on StoryGraph from last year, and noticed I only gave 1/40 books a 5-star rating. Am I okay? It was even a re-read of one of my all time favourites, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.
I'm not evil, I promise. 22/40 of the books I read were between the 4 and 4.75 star mark. Books like The Queens of Sarmiento Park, Enter Ghost, Intermezzo, and The God of Small Things, only just missed the 5-star award. So overall, it was a really great reading year. But it's got me thinking, what exactly makes a book a 5-star read for me? What pushes it from being very good to fantastic? Is it similar to other people? Also, how fair are star rating systems as a whole?
Taste and Time
In my younger years, by comparison, I was throwing around 5-stars like the life of Jess from Gilmore Girls depended on it. The Hunger Games, The Hate U Give, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the entire Infernal Devices trilogy, the list goes on. There was also a lot more range between my ratings in general. Have I lost my passion?? Is my spark gone??
A big part of me wants to re-read my old favourites for the nostalgia, but nostalgia can only go so far, and I worry they won't hold up to my now apparently high and miserable standards. It's a blessing and a curse that our taste develops over time - the more you read the more you gravitate towards books you know you'll like. But this can mean things are less likely to surprise you or that we might even be missing out on an all-time favourite just because it's marketed as a genre we wouldn't usually pick up.
Book platforms - StoryGraph or Goodreads?
The fact that I was previously only using Goodreads, which doesn't allow for half or quarter-star ratings was probably a contributing factor to the higher saturation of 5-star reviews. This isn't an ad for StoryGraph, I'm genuinely just a big fan.
On top of a more nuanced rating system, StoryGraph has a way more intuitive interface (that doesn't look like the first website ever created) with great graphs and statistics for your reading moods and genres. An added bonus is StoryGraph is independently owned by the incredible Nadia Odunayo, and the platform's smaller but ever-growing community means books are far less likely to be targeted by 'review-bombing'. But, my FOMO does still often make me pop onto Goodreads to see reviews from the masses. It's honestly become muscle memory now.
The digital age of social media has meant our opinions can be disseminated on a gigantic and fragmented scale. It's not just our friends and family we are relying on for book recs, but millions of readers online from all over the world, and it's all conveniently packaged into a 5-star system. How amazing and overwhelming.
Who do we trust for recommendations?
If picking up a book based on its critical acclaim and high ratings was a crime, I'd be serving a life sentence. I think a lot of us would be, which isn't a bad thing. In a community, humans have always informed each other's decisions and opinions - which berries taste the best and also won't kill me? Did you see the new Queen music video? Is Babel worth the hype?
It can be a good idea to take the opinions of the critical masses with a grain of salt when you're getting recommendations from the loved ones in your life. If my Grandma, who read The Secret History before it was cool, highly recommends me a book she's got me for Christmas, I'm not going to refuse to read it if it's got a rating under 3.5 stars. Imagine.
Irrespective of a book's star rating, I think it's important to listen to book recommendations from friends, co-workers (the good ones), local booksellers, and love interests you want to impress. These people might still have taste that doesn't align with yours, but oh well, maybe it will be good to try something different. Plus, sometimes it takes reading a bad or average book to know when one has knocked your socks off. Best of all, if, like me, you still haven't gotten over the fear of talking to strangers online, you'll have someone IRL to discuss the book with!
The next step in relinquishing control is picking up a book you've never heard of, by an author you don't know, just because the blurb caught your attention. If you like the sound of this, our lucky dip books or book club subscription might be just the thing for you. Wink wink nudge nudge.
How fair and accurate are star rating systems?
It's a big question - how can all the complexities of a book, movie, restaurant, or bowling alley be encompassed into a simple rating out of five? The short answer is, they can't, but things don't always need to be so complicated.
I do really love reading and watching longer-form reviews. When I was studying, writing an essay or discussing a particular book in class made me appreciate and understand it even more. I don't just mean pretentious classics either. Books that are often categorised as binge-worthy fun can have a whole lot happening beneath the surface, especially when you consider the wider context something is written.
This also doesn't mean books with lots to analyse can't be 1-star reads either. Part of the fun comes from working out what about a novel made it awful or incredible. Thinking and talking about books can make reading all the more fun, which is part of the reason why book clubs continue to flourish. But being in this critical headspace can be exhausting! Sometimes reading for fun might look like reading as solitary escapism. Sometimes you want to read just to switch your brain off, and hey, it's still a lot better for you than doom-scrolling.
In reality, we all lead busy and chaotic lives, where only a small percentage of people have the time and capacity to write, read, or watch essay-length analytical book reviews. It's part of my job and I struggle to make time for it. The 5-star rating system is a quick and accessible way to review books and can give a really helpful overview of general opinion. As long as we don't let these ratings dictate us, and remember reading is subjective, the book industry has a lot bigger fish to fry.
What makes a read 5-stars (for me)?
Alright, it's time to circle back to the beginning with a title drop. It's about time looking at how much I've yapped so far. I'll try and keep it short and sweet, but no promises.
When I finish a book and discover it's a new favourite, it's really more of a feeling that's occurring, which is annoying because those pesky feelings are notoriously hard to put into words.
It's a feeling that I've been changed in some way, even a small one. It's a feeling of understanding with the characters and their world, as if what I've just read has captured a humanness I hadn't noticed before or had forgotten.
I also consider whether a book is memorable and if it will stay with me. Sometimes I'll up my initial rating if I find myself still thinking about a book and its characters months later. When I'm reading a book for the first time, I want to keep picking it up. And when I'm finished, I know I'll want to read it again in the future.
Good writing is important, but something I'm less conscious of when I rate something 5-stars - instead I'm thinking more of the story as a whole rather than at a craft level. And a fantastic story has the power to elicit some sort of emotional response in me, whether that be surprise, despair, warmth, or what's maybe my favourite, hope.
I'm very aware I sound a bit like a dramatic and sentimental hippie, but I guess that's who I am. I do really seem to love books that don't necessarily have everything tied up in a neat bow by the end, but still ultimately feel hopeful. And I can't believe I'm about to drop a Hunger Games quote from President Snow of all characters - but maybe hope really is stronger than fear.
Now that I'm thinking about my all-time favourite books, I'm not sure 5-stars really does feel like enough.