jefrye t1_j0wxpwu wrote
Reply to comment by StarblindCelestial in Pro-tip: If a well reviewed book has a Goodread's rating of around 3.5 then it's usually interesting by Proper_Cold_6939
>If you look at the distribution of ratings you'll see 1 and 2 stars are almost never used.
That's because most people read books they expect they'll at least like, and the traditional publishing process does a relatively good job of filtering out the really unreadable stuff.
I can guarantee you that if people picked books at random then the ratings distribution would look a lot different.
StarblindCelestial t1_j0xic3y wrote
>That's because most people read books they expect they'll at least like
While that does account for some of it, it doesn't make anything I said invalid. 2 star is supposed to be "it was ok" which is an opinion that should happen relatively often, even when you're reading in your preferred genera. Instead of rating it as such, many people give it a 3 or even a 4 because they think 2 stars is too harsh. 2 stars is only 1 higher than the lowest option, which they would only give to the worst books. But it is also only 1 below average and a perfectly reasonable rating for something that was a near miss for you.
>the traditional publishing process does a relatively good job of filtering out the really unreadable stuff
Indie publishing doesn't filter it out, but putting that aside this is why people should use 1 and 2 stars more often. I think they reserve them for if they were rating incoherent garbage, but that just shrinks the scale we can use. Those should be an outlier because including them in the data set messes everything up. A 2 star rating seems like a slap in the face only because it's so skewed by the fact that we've practically made 3.5 stars the new 1.5 stars.
I don't use 1 or 2 stars very often, but if you look at the reviews for even controversial books they often only add up to a single digit percentage of the total reviews. Often a low one.
For example I know a decent amount of people dislike The Name of the Wind for various reasons, but it has 3% 1s and 2s. If we add the 6% of 3s I can see that 9% as a reasonable amount of people who disliked it or thought the story wasn't for them.
The Wheel of Time also gets its fair share of haters for the way he writes women, yet The Eye of the World has 5%. A bit more reasonable, but it still seems low.
A Game of Thrones has 3%. It's a great book, but I would expect more than 3% to be put off by the grim dark a bit. Enough to say it's good, but not really for them. Which is exactly what 2 star or "it was ok" is supposed to be.
It's even more concerning when you factor in that a good portion of those 1%-2% of 1 stars DNF. So like 98.5%-99.5% of people who finished the book (not any specific for this part) thought it was at least ok. Somehow I don't believe that.
jefrye t1_j0xn6aq wrote
>2 star is supposed to be "it was ok" which is an opinion that should happen relatively often,
I'm not so sure. That 3-star midpoint of "I liked it" is generally the minimum expectation people have when going into a book, because who picks up a book they think they won't even like? And, more so, who keeps reading a book when they've realized it's falling short of their expectations?
>I know a decent amount of people dislike The Name of the Wind for various reasons,
I think this really highlights why the rating distribution seems to skew unnaturally high: books are long and complex, and readers can easily have very specific problems with a book while still having an overall 3-star experience because they're rating the entirety of the book.
Personally, I almost never give out 1-star reviews because it's unusual that I finish a book I actively dislike. 2 stars is typically my lowest, because even if I don't like a book, there usually has to be something interesting about it to keep me reading. And then I'm happy to give 3 stars to any book I liked overall, even if it's not something I'm super enthusiastic about.
StarblindCelestial t1_j0xsa87 wrote
If you've never or very rarely picked up a book you think you'll like only to be disappointed you're very lucky indeed. As for continuing a book that is falling short, I'd say it's quite common for many reasons. Bought it and don't want to feel as if it was a waste of money, nothing else to read, everyone else loves it so there must be something in it somewhere that you'll eventually like, discussion/book club/education purposes, a single compelling plot point hiding amongst the drivel, interesting structure/literary technique that you want to see how it's used despite not liking the story, sunk cost fallacy and an aversion to DNF off the top of my head.
All that about ratings may sound reasonable at surface level, and it's how most people use rating systems, but don't you see how it lowers the range of ratings thus making them less useful? If you don't like a book you give it a 2star, but 1star was literally made for books you don't like. It isn't for books that are an affront to humanity that shouldn't have been published. And while you only cut off 1star it should be easy to see how others cut off 2star as well in the same way making it even worse. If everyone decides for themself what the star means for them personally instead of using the defined meanings they become useless. This post for example uses 3.5 star as an example for a terribly rated book that most people would avoid, whereas to me there's absolutely nothing wrong with a 3.5. That's almost 4 which is a very good score.
I think it boils down to many if not most people thinking 1star means it was a bad book so they don't use it. That's not what it means. It just means you didn't like it and there's nothing wrong with that.
jefrye t1_j0xtt1o wrote
>If you don't like a book you give it a 2star, but 1star was literally made for books you don't like.
I think this is actually the crux of the issue: 1 star is for books you dislike. Dislike is an active negative feeling, not simply the lack of a positive feeling.
2 stars is for books that are "okay" and fall in that gray are between "dislike" and "like."
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