A numbers game

How do you judge a book? More precisely, how do you assign a number to that judgement? Goodreads asks for a book to be rated between a 1 and a 5 star. But is your 3 star rating the same as mine?

Rating books is so subjective. After all, one man’s meat may very well be another man’s poison. Take Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’, a classic by any reckoning. Well, it has 218,196 ratings out of which 6070 people rate it at a 1. A measly 1!! Their reasons being it is bloated, didactic, over long and quite simply boring. I wouldn’t know as I’ve never been brave enough to read it myself.

Let’s take a modern classic- ‘To kill a Mockingbird’ (one of my favourites but admittedly one I read too many years ago) and look at its ratings. It has 3,657,329 ratings out of which 65484 rate it at a 1. Wow! Reading through the 1 star reviews I see racism, white privilege and a skewed view of segregation in the 60’s. One dimensional, poor prose and a lack of self awareness are the other criticisms levelled at it.

So, if one were to rely only on reviews, and if, as most readers do, you only read the 5 star and the 1 star reviews, would you still read these books?

Upon publishing my book, I was so excited to receive my first 5 star rating. Yes, it was from a friend and no doubt there was an inherent bias there, but that did not stop me from savouring the moment. Conversely, my first 3 star rating immediately had me doubting my abilities. It took quite a few ratings to stop me see sawing between joy and despair. I was lucky enough that I did not get any 2’s or 1’s or I might have become suicidal! (Just kidding).

I have to admit to being a generous reviewer. I happily dole out 4 star and 5 star reviews to most books. My reasoning being that I only pick up good books to read. Books that have come to me through recommendation or have won some major awards. However, somewhere behind this also lies the fact that I am aware of how much sweat, blood and tears goes into writing and publishing a book. Therefore, I am naturally inclined to err on the side of generosity. I have only ever rated one book with a 1 star, and that was because it was truly abysmal.

I was approached not too long ago by a self published author who wanted me to read and review his book of short stories. As this is my preferred genre, I agreed happily, only to discover that the entire book was riddled with bloopers. From grammatical errors to idiomatic faux pas to gender anomalies, it was as though it had been through no editing process at all, and had been presented to me in its first draft avatar. I still gave it 3 stars and a subtle nudge to the writer to ahem, make some amendments to his manuscript.

Interestingly enough, I stumbled upon a conversation between a few writers on a forum, who were trying to decide on the protocol of reviewing other people’s work.

Writer 1: “So, what rating do you give them? I mean, I don’t think it’s worth a 5, but maybe a 2 will be too disappointing….”

Writer 2: “Why not a 4 then? That is a good enough compromise. It’s not too low but it’s not the highest.”

Writer 3: “I reserve my 4’s for reeealllly good books. If the book is decent I give it a 3.”

They ultimately decided, in all their wisdom, that fellow writers could be given a 4 as a sign of encouragement and kinship.

This made me look at my own 3’s and think that maybe someone’s 3 was worth my 5, or maybe someone’s 3 was actually worth a 1. Aaaaarrrghhhh!

In the end, does it really matter? What matters is that people read, and they read extensively enough to be able to distinguish between the good, the great, the bad and the truly awful.

As for the ratings, take them all with a pinch of salt. It is only a numbers game after all.

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If you’d like to read my reviews and my book (Parvathy’s Well & other stories) follow the link:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38231415-parvathy-s-well-other-stories?ac=1&from_search=true#other_reviews