Four star reviews

Speaking as a reader and sometimes reviewer:

My personal philosophy sees four stars as good and solid, but five as something more than good - excellent, on a higher level.

Get down into three, and I'd call that a possible detriment - but if that's how I read it, that's how I call it. (Two and one stars are rare, but again, if that's how I read it...)

As a reader skimming reviews, I consider anything above three to be a recommendation, and three and below to be a caution. (Though I habitually skim both high and low reviews; some five-stars are just gushing nonsense, TBH, while some three-to-one stars have warned me off from things I probably would've been hacked off at. And I'm always wary of books with few reviews that are all gushing-nonsense five stars...)

BLMN said:

Just realized that maybe it's not ok to post links to another writer's blog. Admin, some thoughts please.

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Nah, that's fine. For one thing, it's the blog of Writer's Digest. It's a publishing corporation. They want incoming links.

It's sometimes a problem when people link to a personal blog, and then discuss it here, because it means the person who put all the work into writing the post doesn't get the benefit of the traffic.

It's better if you talk about what particular ideas in the post caught your attention, rather than just link dropping, and it's really good that you didn't just copy and paste the whole thing.

It's not detrimental at all. THe more reviews the better and frankly, it makes me lose faith in humanity to see nondescript books have only 5 stars. Like, that book is apparently better than every classic ever (but more likely, it's been farmed out to a review group somewhere, hence the weird reviews in those cases).

A good spread is a good thing. Amazon gets suspicious of only 5 stars and so do I. Most of my favorite books pan out at 3.5-4 stars in goodreads.

I'm really stingy with 5-star reviews. For me they go to books that blow my mind or stay in my thoughts for a long time. Or ones I know I will read again one day.

I trust four-star reviews more than five-star, in this era of paid-for reviews and friends and family gushing on Amazon.

I only give 5 for 'the best book I've read for ages'. A solidly enjoyable book gets 4, an OK book gets 3.
That said I have a mix of 4 and 5s (a total of 27) for my own book on UK Amazon.

I give out 5s grudgingly. Mind you, I have given out a few but that's because when I first joined GR I began by rating all my favourite books. Since then a 4 is more typical from me for a book I enjoy - something has to be really special to get a 5 because then it's being rated alongside the classics.


That said, as I writer I love getting 5s - especially from people I don't know. My most frequently rated book is currently bang on 4.0 (on GR). It has lots of 5s but also a smattering of 1s and 2s - it tends to polarize people. My other two are comfortably above 4 (especially the latest). I'm honest enough to admit there is a friend factor at play with those and it can be embarrassing - especially when they write a gushing review really obviously pretending not to know me. More than once I've had to ask people to tone it down.

The other side of the coin is gushing reviews from people who really don't know me. I was very proud this week to have my latest described as: Chaucer meets Cornwell.

That's why I write.

Four star reviews aren't a detriment. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love getting five stars, but four is still a solid recommendation. Even three I would consider to be more average/middle-of-the-road than cautionary; if a book was enjoyable but didn't leave a strong impression on me, or if I had conflicting feelings on it, I would give it a three. And overall, when I'm reading reviews, I'm more concerned with the content than the number of stars. A long, detailed, thoughtful four-star review is preferable to a one-line five-star review, at least for me...though of course I appreciate any and all reviews I get.

You rate books for the benefit of fellow readers, not authors. Your loyalty should be to the customer, trying to avoid buying a lemon, not to the manufacturer attempting to make a buck.

Therefore it is never "detrimental" to be honest. You're doing the service to the world that customer reviews are intended to do.

jjdebenedictis said:

You rate books for the benefit of fellow readers, not authors. Your loyalty should be to the customer, trying to avoid buying a lemon, not to the manufacturer attempting to make a buck.

Therefore it is never "detrimental" to be honest. You're doing the service to the world that customer reviews are intended to do.

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Agree completely.

I agree also when reviewing.

Doesn't stop me being a greedy narcissist when being reviewed.

BLMN said:

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor...ies/reviews/how-to-get-five-star-book-reviews
Did a little twittering and found this take from a professional reviewer. Interesting read.

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Yes, it is. Thanks for posting that link. It sounds like he and I look for the same things in a book. And I should think his "Hierarchy of Needs" would also be helpful as a reference for anyone beta-reading a novel.

I consider a four-star review to be a very positive rating.