tales of Suchita

I dislike giving stars to books. I remember talking to a friend, telling her how much I love a book and she happened to see the rating I had given this book and she was confused because I had given it only 3 stars. When she asked me to explain, I had no idea why I had given it the stars I had.

I feel stars don’t really cover what the book made me feel so I wanted to devise a system that worked better for me.

In this, two movie reviewers really helped: Jeremy Jahns and Sucharita.

Jeremy Jahns has his own reviewing system where he rates movies with ratings like: awesometacular, I wouldn’t remember this in T-minus 1 day, great time no alcohol required, etc. I find it such an intuitive system to follow that just by his rating I can figure out if I should watch a movie or not.

Sucharita ends her reviews with the line: On a scale of 1 to 10, [movie name] is…and instead of giving it a rating, she shares a fun-fact about the movie. I love what she shares every time and it leaves me with a smile on my face.

So, after oscillating over names, expressions, emotions, etc. to categorize my book rating system, I decided on:

1. Thank you for existing
2. Meh
3. Ugh, WTF
4. What a fun ride
5. Hmmm

I tested this system for the books I had read in 2022 and it…worked! So I have been using it to rate the books I will be reading in 2023.

Now the nice people of Blogchatter asked me for a legend to decode the rating system so I thought I’d use GIFs and words to explain.

Thank you for existing

This is a book that made me grateful that I read books, that it came into my life, and I’m not even jealous that I would perhaps never be able to write one like it. For example: Em and the Big Hoom.

Meh

A book that had everything going for it, sure, but it left me feeling wanting. It left me feeling like my life did not change after finishing this book. For example: The Devotion of Suspect X.

Ugh, WTF

A book that made me angry – not in a good way. It made me angry because I was promised something but what was delivered was something entirely different. For example: Girl in White Cotton.

What a fun ride

I was entertained. It made me curious. It left me satisfied. It made me feel all the feelings and I’m glad I read this book. For example: The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Hmmm

Basically I haven’t decided what I like or dislike about this book. It’s a bit difficult to categorize and I had high expectations from it so I don’t know where to place it. You know? For example: Sea of Tranquility.

As you can observe, my rating system is completely subjective and arbitrary BUT I think it works for me. Now that you know how I rate books, what about you – what’s your system?

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Header Photo by Ugur Akdemir on Unsplash