Some Thoughts on Stars

Beautiful stars... (public domain)

I’ve been thinking about stars

No, not those stars. Not the ones that twinkle in a clear summer sky. I’m talking about the ones that corrupt and compromise you, the ones that make you feel bad about yourself, the ones that hammer home your own irrationality and, days, weeks or even months later, leave you riddled with guilt.

They’re the stars that review sites insist you allocate before you leave your thoughts on a book.

Generally speaking I avoid giving star ratings, but as I’ve recently tried to do a lot more reviewing, on the grounds that it’s a way to help writers and also help readers find books they want to read, I’ve been forced into it. When I review on my blog, I don’t leave a star rating, but Amazon, Goodreads and Netgalley, which are the places I’m now regularly posting, won’t let you get away with that.

I find it a huge problem. Not because I hate giving a bad review, because that’s easily dealt with purely by not reviewing a book if I can’t give it at least three stars, and preferably four. But reviewing is subjective, and while you can build that into the text of a review, the raw star rating doesn’t allow it.

So on what basis should I score a book on a scale of between one and five? Because it’s a good book? But we’ll almost certainly differ on what constitutes a good book, and I can think of a lot of good books I haven’t enjoyed, and some bad ones I did.

Not-so-beautiful stars...

So shall we say there’s a book I enjoyed some years ago and gave five stars? But my tastes have changed and now I don’t think it’s half as good as I did. In the past I’ve given five stars to books in a genre that was new to me because I thought they were fresh and original, only to realise that in fact they’re just tired repetitions of the same old tropes. So do I give four stars to a book that’s better than the one I originally gave five stars to, because now I understand the genre and overrated the first one?

Some of the differences between four and five stars may be nothing to do with the book itself. They might include:

• whether I’m in the particular mood for that particular book at that particular time
• whether I like the place it’s set, or find a well-written character irritating
• the frame of mind I’m in when I read it (gritty, violent, scary books will get a lower score if I’m feeling frail and in need of cuddles, whereas you’ll probably always get a higher rating for something feel-good)
• whether I’ve read a book with a similar plot that was better.

I’ve reached an uncomfortable accommodation with my soul over this. I read books for pleasure, so my default position is that I would expect to give every book I read at least four stars. If a book falls short it might get three. But the difference between three, four and five stars probably isn’t one of quality but is all about me and my expectations.

I might as well admit to my inconsistencies. I’m too old to grapple with a qualitative rating system so I’ll give stars for enjoyment, and I reserve the right to be inconsistent.

Jennifer Young

Let’s talk about reviews - and in particular Amazon reviews.

I love it when one of my books receives a 4 or 5* review. The world glows! The gloom that descends when there is a non favourable review is all consuming and depressing for a while until I pull myself together and remember not everyone is going to like what I write and maybe the reviewer had a valid criticism. And then I get on writing the next book and telling myself a mix of stars is a good sign in readers eyes. It proves that more people other than just your mates have read the book.

There’s been a lot of talk on various FB groups this week about a certain reviewer leaving one star reviews with the words ‘Didn’t read’ against a lot of books on Amazon. But, aside from the fact that it is quite simply not a review at all, the one star automatically lowers the author’s overall rating, which is what has angered many authors and caused them to react. But should authors react to these type of reviews? Isn’t it a question of the best policy is to read, sigh and ignore? A difficult question to answer.

For authors dependent on Amazon reviews to sell books it’s all turned into a bit of a lottery hasn’t it? Amazon’s policy of emailing customers within a week of them making a purchase of anything, asking them to review the item, seems to intimidate people into leaving a comment immediately. This way of garnering reviews simply doesn’t work for books. For example  ‘5* - arrived safely’ says more about the packaging and delivery service than it does about a book. So a failure as a review but it will give the author’s rating a boost - albeit unfairly. Some people also seem to fail to understand the 1 - 5 star system. I’ve seen glowing reviews in the past accompanied by a 1* because the reviewer has the mistaken belief that it’s the highest ranking and not the lowest. And, once again, the author's rating on Amazon suffers.

I'm not sure whether it’s an urban myth or not but apparently Amazon like to see at least 20 reviews for a book before they start to feature it in various threads like ‘Recommended for you’ and ‘Customers who bought this item also bought’. What definitely isn’t an urban myth is the fact that Amazon will delete a 5* review if they believe there is a connection between the author and the reviewer - whilst leaving the '1* didn’t read' in place.

And in truth the majority of buyers/readers of books will never leave a review. Not because they didn’t love/hate the book but because it simply doesn’t occur to them, nor do they realise how important a review on Amazon has become for authors. Years ago popular fiction was rarely mentioned in the book review pages of newspapers, it was literary fiction all the way. Amazon has certainly changed that with their review system - even if it is a bit like the curate's egg!

Word of mouth has been proved time and time again to be the way to sell books but that is as difficult to kick start as getting people to leave reviews. So personally I'm going to stop worrying about the reviews, try to always write the best book I can, and carry on dreaming that one day one of my books will be the next big thing.

Do you look at the reviews before you buy a book? Or do you prefer to take recommendations from friends? Do you look at book blogs? Or simply buy if the blurb appeals? How do you decide?