Showing posts with label book ratings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book ratings. Show all posts

Apr 4, 2014

The trouble with rating media

You may have noticed that I don't really include ratings on book. I tend to shy away from the practice as I often ffind it hard to know how to rate things like movies, books and TV shows.  You know things that will be compiled and make recommendations for future suggestions.  I find it hard to know where the break points should be.  First I should say I am very stingy on giving out 5 stars, as I think that only perfection deserves 5 stars.  Gatsby and Breaking Bad fit this category, but perfection is hard to reach. 

From there you go to 4 stars.  This is where I tend to put things I really like and enjoyed and that are well done.  But even a 4 star rating can be hard for me to give out, because it has to be near perfection.

1 and 2 stars are a bit easier, actually, I wish there was a zero star for things I just hated.  But these are things I really don't like and it is easy for me to know when it just isn't for me.

And that leaves the 3 star ratings.  These are the hardest for me because there are 2 types of books, movies and TV shows that I partake in.  And a 3 star classic novel would be vastly different than a 3 star YA book.  Not to mention how do I reckon a bad story by Fitzgerald or Asten to a good fluff book.  When I rate Fitzgerald or Austen it is usually to their other work, but just because I liked it less than something else they have written dosen't mean it should resided in the realm of Divergent.  Divergent is a good YA novel.  I didn't hate it, so I wouldn't give it a 1 or 2, it is a 3 star book for me.  But when I place it next to A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway, it just seems wrong that they should even be rated the same.

I need  2 prong rating system. One for more serious works and one for fluff.  Does anyone else have this problem?  How do you deal with this?