Rating System

There are so many aspects to consider when rating a book – a simple 1 to 5 doesn’t cut it!  So here is the rating system I’ve devised for this blog.  Every entry will have a numerical rating for three axes:

• Writing quality
  • 5 = Beautiful writing, have to reread sections
  • 4 = Very good writing; clear, well organized, some great lines
  • 3 = Good writing; does not detract from reading the book
  • 2 = bad writing; hard to forget that you’re reading a book
  • 1 = terrible writing; too painful to read
• Characters
• Plot
  • 5 = Great story line; surprising, intricate; hard to put down
  • 4 = Good story line
  • 3 = adequate story line – wouldn’t be enough to read without great writing or characters
  • 2 = boring; predictable
  • 1 = stupid; very irritating to read

Additionally, I’ll use tags to define:

• Category (literary fiction, speculative fiction, historical fiction, mystery, juvenile, romance)
• Mood (dark, uplifting, comical, depressing, terrifying, sad, fascinating, joyful)
• Elements (action, romance, comedy, suspense)
• Writing style (experimental, epistolary, poetic, spare)
• Narrative style (omniscient, first-person, unreliable-first-person, third-person-non-omniscient,…)
• Other (gets better, gets worse, relevant, book club fodder, light, complex/intricate, long, short)

Please feel free to suggest additional axes and / or tags.  Tags are obviously multiple selection quantities!