I've always had a few problems with rating books. As you can see from my first review I didn't rate the book with a grade. If I had to do it, it would be an A-.
When I first started to rate books I just separated them between good books and bad books (meaning the ones I enjoyed and the ones I didn't). Ever since I joined the discussion groups at Yahoo I tried to be more specific. Most people I know rate from A to F so that is what I decided to do. It didn't work well because I seldom had the courage to rate lower than C.
At the same time most of the books I read were not even close to being keepers. I decided to be more demanding in my appreciation, a B seemed to be a book other people kept and I was trading all of mine and sometimes I even traded As.
I was blog hoping one of these days and found a description of grades that I liked here:
A-LOVED this book. It will never leave my library. If I borrowed it, I'll buy it as soon as possible. Will reread often or go back to read my favorite parts.
B- I liked the book. It may or may not stay in my library. Probably won't get reread much.
C-Indifference. I didn't like it, I didn't hate it. Will be taken to the UBS
D-Didn't care for it. Didn't keep my interest. Story was dull. Will be taken back the UBS
F- Hated it. For sure going back to the UBS and will wish I hadn't wasted my time on it.
It's not different from what I suppose everyone else is using but I thought it was such an nice description that I made a vow of trying to fit my reads in that model. This is going to make me lower my grades somewhat but I'm sure it will be more accurate regarding my feelings for a book.
So I guess it's time for a major reread of my keepers and see if some of them fall off the shelf (or get kicked out). Most of them date from when I first started reading romance and my tastes are a bit different now.
Just wish I had a UBS near so I could trade all of those books that don't make the upper half of this rating system. And unfortunately they are many.
My new friend T. told me about some in Lisbon that I plan to visit in the near future. In the meanwhile I'll continue to trade books through my Trade Page or Bookmooch, can't have all those Cs laying around and occupying space that is meant for the As ;-)
Grading's difficult for me sometimes. Not really assigning the grade... I kind of instinctively know what grade a book was for me (though sometimes my opinion changes as I write my review and I realise that, say, there were more things I loved that I had noticed while I was reading). But after I've graded, I'll look at the other books that got that same grade, and sometimes I get some doubts, or feel bad about grading a book that was technically excellent the same as that category romance that was very simple and uncomplicated but very enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteSo it's not just me? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI understand and sometimes I also feel troubled by giving the same grade to very different books. ..