I was curious about how you handle “public” book reviews on sites like Goodreads / Amazon / whatever you use..
I used to add a star rating after every book I read. It was a way for ME to keep track of what I liked and did not. It was not a reflection on the quality of the book (or lack thereof), but based on factors like how I felt about it, if I would recommend it to a friend, if I would reread it etc..
I started seeing a lot of authors post how they HATE book reviewers that do this, or low reviews in general, and I stopped giving any book a star rating. However, I’m missing it. I have no memory of what I thought of books from 2 years ago (or 2 months ago), and I do get into slumps where I want to go reread something but I don’t want to sift through things I didn’t like
I’m not any kind of influencer anywhere, so my reviews are FOR ME to keep track, and I would never publicly trash an author. Honestly, they wrote a dang book, that’s amazing! That said, these stars do get tallied up for percentages etc..
Do you guys use star ratings? Do you feel guilty about it?
Also, if you use something you like better than Goodreads, what is it? Especially for decent recommendations based on your history
by squishytriangles
1 Comment
StoryGraph app is a good one for simply tracking your own reading history. I’m bad at keeping track, myself, but it’s the one my friend turned me on to and she uses it a lot. I don’t think any notes or ratings you drop end up reflecting on the book itself or for the author to see. I could be wrong tho?