Why I'm No Longer Using A Rating System

For a while I have kept reading blog posts or watching videos regarding rating systems and why it brings pressure onto our reviews and I thought about throwing in my two cents and talk you through my decision of not using a rating system anymore here on my blog. I will still use it on Goodreads but I don’t post fully reviews on there so there’s that.

Rating is useful; that much is true. It gives us base to organize our thoughts around a number. However, I found the main problem to be that ratings are a personal thing. Stars or whatever form you use, concerning the reader who is giving them, can mean differently. 3 stars for instance, are rather controversial. According to Goodreads – and me – it means you liked the book. However, there are loads of people out there who wouldn’t read a book with a 3 star rating.

For a long time now, the idea of removing ratings on my blog has been going around my mind. And I finally made the decision. Sometimes people pay more attention to the number rather than the proper review which is more important since it puts into words our feelings regarding a story. It appears as if the number has more weight than the opinion itself and I don’t want that.

To tell the truth I don’t pay any attention to the final rating when I’m reading a review; I need foremost to understand the reader’s feelings to decide for myself whether the book would be worth reading. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. It’s not a number at the end, or at the beginning, of a post what makes me add a book to my TBR or not. It is what others say about it and what the book says about itself – a good synopsis, that is.

I’m not gonna remove the ratings from previous posts but from now on, you won’t see the deathly hallows anymore. Who knows, maybe one day I will change my mind again.

What about you guys? How do you feel about the rating system?