One thing you may notice about my reviews posted to Behind the Pages is that they have no stars. The go to rating system on sites like Goodreads and Amazon is a 1-5-star rating. And I’ve seen a range of similar rating systems on other sites. There’s nothing wrong with using stars, but personally I don’t like them. I have to use the star system on other sites, but as for mine? I prefer to have no stars. I don’t want people to judge a book by how many stars it has. I want them to learn more about the book and if it is right for them.
I don’t read a review for its star rating. I skip the stars and go straight to reading the reviews to see how different everyone’s views are of the book. Ok so maybe I’m one of the few here, honestly, I don’t know. To me, it’s similar to how I look at product reviews. I want to know how it works and what might go wrong, so I read beyond the star rating.
I also don’t always agree with what they stand for. Yes, I do rate books, but only because I have to on some sites. It doesn’t mean I agree with what the rating stands for. I can rate a book 5 stars even though I didn’t love it. If a book was well written, but just wasn’t the right one for me, why should I take away stars?
You’ll also notice I tend to keep my reviews on the short side. I try not to go over 400 words. This is based on my own attention span. I figure there might be a few people out there like me who won’t sit through paragraph upon paragraph of a review. I try to keep them light, entertaining, and to the point. Sometimes I can accomplish that, sometimes not, but I won’t ever stop trying.
So, what do you think? Do you like using a star rating system? Do you decide which book to read based on the stars it receives?