There is a certain amount of time everyday that I simply need to decompress alone, usually with the comfort of a book*. At any given time I usually have two to four books in progress: one piece of fluffy fantasy, one assigned portion of a memoir(s) for a writing class, one piece that I picked up after the assigned part of the reading caught my interest, and one other random book – such as a non-fiction book on women’s health. Usually some are in audio format and others are on my Kindle. I rely upon GoodReads to help me find new books. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And I can’t help but wonder if other people suffer from rating dilemmas.
First, there’s the problem of granularity. I usually end up rating books 4 stars. If the book is not worthy of at least three stars, I don’t even bother finishing it or keeping it on my shelf. Then I am reluctant to give many books a five star rating. So that leaves me with 3 and 4 to work with.
Then there is the cross genre relative rating frustration. I may absolutely love a graphic novel (or collected volume) like Saga; I may have sat down and cried after reading a Jodi Picault (best described by another GoodRead patron as the Applebees of fiction); I may have laughed out loud enough reading Jenny Lawson that my husband left the room; but how do their five star ratings compare to Gilead by Marilynn Robinson or Blindness by Jose Saramago?
I suppose in the end that what GoodReads rates is the enjoyment one has reading the book, leaving the analysis of the book to a different review mechanism.
*This used to be something that I could do in uninterrupted chunks (except for feline intrusions) of time. Now it’s more a loosely stitched set of miniature segments between interruptions. It’s no wonder that I keep rising earlier and earlier in hope of having some downtime before the crew awakes(by crew, I mean humans, the canine and feline members of the house do need to be sated, no matter that it’s 4:30am.)