everyone has an opinion
Reviews are a funny thing. Everyone has an opinion, but rarely will yours match someone else’s exactly. They shouldn’t! As a writer, an editor, a consumer, and a human, my reviews are heavily based on the emotion and feeling I get from a book and its contents. Some may agree with this, and others won’t—and that’s ok! I figure I spend enough time in my career picking apart grammar, language, structure, consistency, tone, etc. I don’t read to fix someone else’s writing. I read to feel, relate, and escape.
Below is the scale of how I rate when reading (fiction mainly). I rate and review based on a five-star scale, just like Goodreads—though truthfully, rarely does a book not deserve a half star in one direction or the other (Storygraph is great for this).
FIVE Stars 🦄
This book was a unicorn—crazy-amazing, inspiring, and full of magic. It made me think, feel, act, and changed how I see parts of the world. Five star reviews are very personal to me and usually hit me during the right time in life, space, and universe, and cosmos. It’s a perfect storm. What I may view as a five star, definitely isn’t always something I’d share with the world and expect it to be a five star for them, too.
FOUR Stars 💫
This book was a shooting star—beautiful and lovely for a moment, and one I hope to see again. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will tell many people about it. The story was engaging, the characters well developed, and there were probably parts of the novel that stuck with me—maybe I highlighted them, wrote them down, or took a pic on my phone to save and not see again for five years. The pacing may have just been a touch off, or a plot line not quite at the depth I was hoping for.
THREE Stars 🍷
This book was a glass of white wine—it’s wine, so I’m going to finish it and not complain too much, but it’s not the red pinot noir I’d hoped for. I enjoyed parts of the story, but likely wouldn’t read again. Whether due to pacing, storyline, un-relatability or lack of uniqueness, it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me. But, I liked it enough to finish it and there were probably sections that kept me going and I wanted more of!
TWO Stars 🎱
This book was a magic 8 ball—it held so much potential, but just was overall a big disappointment. I did not like this book at all—and was probably annoyed the entire time reading it. But … the author finished the book and I felt inclined to do so as well—secretly (or not so secretly) hoping it would get better. Two stars are pretty rare for me.
ONE Star 💩
This book was poop. End of story. Unreadable. I can honestly say I think I’ve given maybe one single one-star review ever. In the end, if it’s this bad, I’m probably not finishing it. And if I did finish it and it was this bad, the review isn’t going to be pretty.
DNF (Did Not Finish)
If I don’t finish a book, I’m not rating it.
There you have it! The rating and review scale I use for rating books that no one asked for, lol.
Most of my reviews are on our Instagram page during the winter months when we can’t do anything outside in the dirt and flowers don’t need us for a hot minute.