HUGO AWARD-WINNING SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY MAGAZINE
Another Word:
The Precious Five-Star and the Reviewers of Mount Doom
Book reviewers fascinate me.
My first official publishing gig was as a book reviewer for the local free press in Murfreesboro, TN. Every two weeks, I turned in five to eight hundred words about my favorite author or tome du jour. Not that it mattered; I didn’t get paid either way. But I got published! (And, eventually, this led to bigger and better gigs . . . including ghost writing book reviews for the New York Times.)
I suspect my history as a professional reviewer is one of the reasons I’m unafraid of reviews for my books. I’m intrigued by both the terrible and the gushing. Bloggers have had epiphanies about my writing that never would have occurred to me. Conversely, one review encouraged a re-listen of my audiobook with an ear for every nuanced mention of sex, alcohol, and lascivious intention. (If you are truly horrified by such things, you probably just shouldn’t read Enchanted. Or AlphaOops.)
The chemist in me can’t help but look at all this business scientifically. Reviews are by their nature subjective and often tell us more about the reader than the book in question. Similarly, reviews reveal trends in the 21st century reading public. Do they crave more back story, or are they impatient to get to the end? Are they tired of dystopia? Are they looking for more “realism” in their fantasy? (This last one still baffles me as much as the young people who refuse to believe in love at first sight.)
With my latest book release this February, the trend I spotted was something I affectionately call “The Precious Five-Star.” Most of my books (happily) have lots of five-star reviews, some four stars, a few three stars, and proportionately fewer two and one stars.
This release, however, seemed to be racking up the four-star reviews in spades. My first thought was, “Mom is going to be furious.” (Dearest is her favorite and she’ll argue passionately with anyone who says otherwise.) My second thought was, “Did my writing suddenly take a nosedive?” And then I started reading all those four-star reviews.
They were glowing.
Reviewers finished the book and immediately started reading it again from page one. New fans were eager to pick up the first two volumes of the series. Old fans loved it as much as book one. All of them said they couldn’t wait to get their hands on every other future book in the series. And every one was a four-star review.
Like other authors who are amused by a trend, I went on Twitter to have a bit of fun. (THIS BOOK CHANGED MY OIL & MADE ME BREAKFAST IN BED! #4stars) Wackiness ensued . . . as did a discussion that surprised me. An author, a reader, and a professional blogger all responded, telling me that they saved their five-stars for “Books That Changed Their Lives.”
Now, I’ll be honest with you. I have never sat down at my computer, cracked my knuckles over the keyboard, and announced, “Today I am going to change someone’s life.” Moreover, I don’t really want you to change. I happen to like you just the way you are. I’ve been telling stories since I was a kid. My purpose now is pretty much the same as it was then: to entertain myself and my friends. If it’s not your cup of tea, there are always other choices on the menu.
But come on . . . change your life?! That’s a lot of pressure to put on an author before even cracking the spine. Nevermind the fact that it is ultimately you who changes your life. If our words inspire you to do so, that’s an honor you give us. We just sit here giggling and weeping over keyboards. You are the amazing, life-changing person in this equation. (In case you forgot.)
It seems that the majority of people reserving space for the Precious Five-Star are intelligent folks who are very serious about their reading. It follows that those of us who are writing for that demographic would have book reviews on the Intrawebs at large with fewer stars than those more unprofessional folks who have shamelessly filled Amazon and Goodreads with a glut of five-star reviews from street teams and random passersby.
My current writer-in-residence, K. Tempest Bradford, is one of those professional reviewers who uses five stars sparingly. She is suspicious when a product has too many five-star reviews. To her, four stars are more believable. But is this what every reader thinks? Does every reader see “three-and-three-quarters stars” and go read the reviews—or even reviews at other sites—before purchasing?
In time, will the Precious Five-Star hurt sales? In the New York publishing world, sales are everything. Slipping sales lead to contracts not being renewed and dropped series and soon the authors that didn’t change your life are no longer publishing. (You may think this an extreme case, but I’m afraid it happens far more often than you’d like to believe.)
One of my romance writer friends discovered another side effect of this Precious Five-Star culture: a blogger said to my friend at a social gathering that she should not expect a five-star review of her work because those are reserved. Really? Is this appropriate author small talk now?
The more I delve into this dilemma, the more uncertain I am about where I stand on the issue. As a child actress, I was taught never to boo someone on stage, no matter how bad the performance, because that person was brave enough to be on stage. As an optimist, I believe that love should be declared loudly and as often as possible. It costs us nothing, and there’s not enough of it in the world, so what’s to lose?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and their own score system. As long as people continue to be unique, diverse individuals, reviews will never be standardized (and thank goodness!). But will Precious Five-Stars ultimately become a matter of pride or a source of punishment for authors today?
In 2009, the FTC required that blogs mention they “received a free review copy of [Book] in exchange for a fair and honest review.” Does the book industry need to initiate a Precious Five-Star disclaimer? “Your book might buy me a ticket to Hawaii and drive me to the airport, but unless it flies the plane, it’s not getting five-stars from this review site.”
Now I’m curious. How do you review?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alethea Kontis is a princess, author, fairy godmother, and geek. Her bestselling Books of Arilland fairytale series won two Gelett Burgess Children's Book Awards (Enchanted and Tales of Arilland), and was twice nominated for the Andre Norton Award. Alethea also penned the AlphaOops picture books, The Wonderland Alphabet, Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome, Beauty & Dynamite, The Dark-Hunter Companion (w/Sherrilyn Kenyon), and a myriad of poems, essays, and short stories. Princess Alethea lives and writes on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie.
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Lee Smiley wrote on April 6th, 2015 at 2:08 pm:
As an HR manager (gotta pay the bills until this writing thing takes off), I review people, not books. However, if I did review books for a living or recreationally, I would assume that they would fall into a normal bell-curve dispersion so that there were a few ones, a few fives, and everything else would be in the middle. That's how it is with my job applicants. A few all-stars, a few boneheads, and then everyone else. Some of my three- and four-star people have turned out to be the best employees I've ever had. The true test of a book, to me, is how it resonates with me beyond the moment when I close it for the final time, and not how technically brilliant it was. All any of us can ask for as writers is to linger, for a while or maybe longer, in the reader's mind and heart. If that happens, I couldn't care less how many stars I get. I realize it's important for the business side of writing to have good reviews, but do we place too much importance on it and miss the joy that comes from people just liking our stories?
Then again, maybe that's why I'm not widely published.
Chris Kridler wrote on April 6th, 2015 at 3:55 pm:
This post made me smile. Everyone has different criteria for those stars. I think ultimately, books should be judged on what they're trying to achieve. Incredible literary achievement? 5 stars. Scintillating erotica? 5 stars. Hilarious comedy? 5 stars. I don't think it should be like the Oscars, where we assume a comedy will NEVER win Best Picture (they did sometimes in the old days, but that was then). Every genre should have a shot at 5 stars.
More to the point - I HATE stars. I used to write a lot of book reviews for newspapers, and fortunately, I didn't have to rank with stars. I could use description and context. In other words, the book was judged by the review itself. Readers could read between the lines. But when I wrote movie reviews, I had to do stars - and I hated it. Apples and oranges and kumquats were all compared side-by-side, even if I was judging each work by what it set out to achieve.
Worse, some reviewers give lower reviews on Goodreads than Amazon, because they perceive stars as being worth more on Goodreads. Grades are a little better. At least they allow more nuance with pluses and minuses. I say, if you can't get rid of stars altogether, be generous with them.
Sarah wrote on April 6th, 2015 at 6:24 pm:
I really enjoyed reading this post! The rating system isn't something I think a lot about, so your insights into it were really interesting.
I generally don't write full reviews of the books I read, but I do usually rate them on Goodreads. As a general rule, I tend to base my ratings on how much I enjoyed the book. It doesn't matter if the book actually changed my life or not (I can think of very few books that have done that); if it makes me fall head over heels in love with the characters and the story, if it makes me laugh and cry and scream because the author has played puppets with my emotions, if it leaves me mindblown with shock and awe or inspired to be and do more, if it enchants me so much that I sacrifice writing time and internet time and occasionally sleep to read more of it- if it does any or multiple of these things, it's probably a five-star book.
Michelle R. wrote on April 6th, 2015 at 8:29 pm:
I agree! A book does not have to change my tires to get five stars. It does need to do at least one thing very well and not have any problem spots. If it is a book I couldn't put down, it gets five stars. Or maybe it is very thought provoking, or maybe it made me cry and laugh. Not all books are trying to do all of those things at once. If there is a problem spot, like a rushed or predictable ending, I try to judge if it is particular to myself or if many readers are likely to feel the same way because it is not serving the story's purpose or it is jarring the reader out of the text.
Laura C. wrote on April 6th, 2015 at 8:50 pm:
(TLDR: I'm not stingy with my stars. Authors that write books I enjoy should get rewarded, and I'm fairly poor so I can't bump up their sales.)
I give 5 stars to books that I get stuck in. Books where I wish I could be in that world, or books that put my current world in a different perspective. I could never give 5 stars just to my "favorite book", mostly cause I have many favorite books. I've got, gosh, by now, several shelves of 5 star, favorite books.
I tend to be generous, well, that's probably not the right word, but if a book only has a couple flaws in my eyes, depending on the flaw and the rest of the book, it'll probably be a 4 or 5. 3 stars is a book that's just okay, didn't really provoke any major feelings or thoughts in me. 2 stars is I'm not fond of the book, but I don't consider reading it a total waste. 1 star is usually for the very worst of the worst. Books that as I'm reading I can notice plot holes, or things that haven't been researched, or I can't like any of the characters, and the world kinda sucks too.
I'm certain I've given way more 5 stars than 1 stars, or 2 stars. I've been of the same opinion that if an author has the determination and bravery to go through all the hassle of getting published, dealing with negative reviews, and unkind readers, they deserve a little appreciation. I don't really even like giving out negative reviews, most of the time I'll try to give solutions to the problems I see. But I've taken a lot of art classes, and learned how to critique, and how it feels for someone to just crap all over something that I've put effort and love into. So yeah.
But this is just my opinion, of course.
Sharon Stogner wrote on April 6th, 2015 at 9:34 pm:
If I read a book and nothing distracts me from the story and I want to keep turning the pages then that is 5 stars. All books start as a five star and it drops depending on how many things bother me (take me out of the story). I'm a line editor and while small copy editing mistakes don't bother me, continuity, character development, pacing and logical world building are important.
And then a lot of it is gut feeling. I know how I feel after reading a five star book (the range of emotions) and my gut will say "that book felt not quite four but better than 3.5...l'll give it 3.75." You can't assign a formula for a rating, it is just a feeling, if that makes sense.
Patrick Freivald wrote on April 6th, 2015 at 10:28 pm:
To me, anything that makes me forget I'm reading and pulls me along for the ride, and/or sticks with me for days or weeks (or longer) afterward, will almost always get five stars.
If I liked it but will put it down for a great TV show or engaging online discussion, four stars.
I don't give three or fewer stars, though I have in the past, because at some point I realized that life is too short to read books that are just okay, when there are excellent stories out there awaiting my attention, if only I can find them. Thus, all three-star and worse books become DNFs for me, and I won't review a book I didn't finish.
Irvin K wrote on April 6th, 2015 at 10:51 pm:
I am generous with my stars - per Goodreads, my average rating is 4.04 across over 500 books. In other words, a majority of 5-stars that's balanced by a few really low ratings. For me, 5 stars is any book that I loved and would recommend to a friend without reservation. 4 stars means a few issues need sorting, 3 stars means bits of good and bits of bad, 2 stars is occasional glimmers of something good in a sea of bad, and 1 stars is a book I'd actively recoil from in a bookstore.
But I also feel that the content of reviews is more important than stars. A book may have a 3.8 or whatever on GR, but if all the top reviews are along the lines of "big disappointment that failed to live up to the original," that's more meaningful than any amount of stars.
J.P. wrote on April 7th, 2015 at 4:08 pm:
You rock as always, Princess Alethea! That said, I've mentioned my hesitation in writing reviews in the past and I'm not sure that this helps matters.
Maybe you can help by answering this question: Who is my audience? Is it readers? Because I'm kind of a weirdo, and I have no idea whether the person reading my review is going to have tastes similar to my own. Is it the author, and if so, are they confident and in search of constructive criticism or just barely hanging on and in need of a review-hug?
Reviewing non-fiction works is significantly easier for me than works of fiction. If someone is thinking of reading the book they presumably are interested in the topic and want to know more about it. Is the information presented clearly and engagingly? If so, good review! But with fiction...I honestly have no idea whether you'll enjoy what I enjoy. Heck, I know my wife better than anyone else in the world and I'm only pretty good at picking out books for her.
*sigh* I'm even over-thinking this comment. I'm not particularly happy with it. I'd maybe give it three stars.
Hilaire wrote on April 16th, 2015 at 5:39 pm:
You know Thumper's mom in Bambi? Yeah, I follow her advice: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I simply won't review a book if I hated it. Although, there was that one time I agreed to review a book before realizing what I got myself into. In that case, I listed pros and cons and simply did not give it a star rating at all. I was honest and tactful [I can be tactful---I swear!], and the author loved the review. Scrolling through the pages of Goodreads where I've haphazardly added stars, it seems I'm fairly generous with the stars, but some of the ratings make me think I was having a bad day. Clifford the Big Red Dog only a 3? I think maybe I'd had to read it a hundred times too many to a toddler.
As a reader, I tend to ignore reviews about books. I open a book, read a page and if I want to turn the page then I'm sold. As long as my inner editor doesn't kick in, the author deserves a five-star.
Dann wrote on April 28th, 2015 at 1:38 pm:
A couple thoughts.
Is OK if I am as stingy with 1 star ratings as I am with 5 star ratings?
My use of 5 stars...
1 star - really....bad. (probably did not finish)
2 stars - poorly told story, but it might work OK for someone else (possibility that I did not finish)
3 stars - good story. if I loan you the book, you can keep it or pass it on
4 stars - really good story. if I loan you the book, I expect it back so I can read it again
5 stars - really, really good story. I might just buy the book for you so you can read it.