My Average Stars

One of the comments on my post about Goodreads reviews was really interesting to me. In it, Anonymous said...

...I generally don't trust anyone whose average rating isn't between 3.25 - 3.75 stars. Any less, you're hating too much. Any more, you're constantly spewing love.

This interested me for many reasons, one of them being that, if you go by Goodreads' "guidelines" for their stars (which I use), three stars means that you liked a book and it's not until you get down to one star that you're saying you didn't like a book. And also I wanted to see where my reviews fell.

So I looked at the books I've read in 2011.

79 books, not including a couple of ones I didn't rate and another that was a reread. My average rating for those 79 books is 3.3 stars. Well within this prescribed range.

But then I started to break it up by genre. Adult, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Children's, and Non Fiction. And this is where the ratings started to get a little funny, to not accurately reflect how much I like each genre.


Children's: 3.7
Middle Grade: 3.2
Young Adult: 2.8
Adult: 2.3Non Fiction: 4.8


I know. YOUR MIND IS BOGGLED. Honestly, so was mine. How could my average rating for non fiction be nearly perfect when the rating for YA wasn't even a solid 3.0?

Here's how:

Children's: The Children's books were six picture books and of course they were all adorable, so it was easy to give them high ratings.
Middle Grade: Again, there weren't many books. Only six and this is because I find it incredibly easy to not finish middle grade novels. Many of them are slow-moving and easily lose my interest. Typically if I finish one, it's because I really enjoyed it.
Young Adult: I read a ton of YA novels. The vast majority of the books I've read this year are YA and in a paradoxical way, because I love the genre so much and I'm less likely to not finish a book, I end up reading a lot more so-so YA compared to other genres.
Non Fiction: I've only read four Non Fiction books and with only one exception they were pretty light books. More importantly, they were books I really really wanted to read. For the most part I became enthralled with these books, absolutely amazed. None of them were books I picked up on a whim. So it's no wonder the score was so high.

Aside from the 3.7 average for children's books, none of these are within the range of 3.25-3.75. And now I'm wondering if this does mean I hate too much, or if it's just that I use the star ratings a bit differently than the person who left the comment. Or if maybe the only average that counts is that of all books, not just each individual genre.

I'd love to hear what others think of average ratings, so... thoughts on this?

Goodreads and the Review

Though it took me a while to see the value in it, I now use Goodreads constantly. I love the website but have seen many authors who definitely don't love the site and it's not hard to see why. While Goodreads is essentially a book-centric Facebook that's great for browsing books, keeping track of what you've read, and seeing what your friends are reading, there's a decidedly uncool downside to it that's been apparent to me for a while now.

And that is this: Goodreads, for some reason, lends itself to reviewers being absolutely ruthless. Not ruthless in the brutal, honest way but in a needlessly negative and mean-spirited way. While most bloggers are, if not nice, at least tactful in the reviews they post to their blogs, some are less so on Goodreads. It's not uncommon to see Goodreads reviews that bash not only the book, but also the author -- as a writer and, sometimes, as a person.

It's disconcerting on a few levels.

For one thing, I get now why so many authors seem to be anti-Goodreads. Though I think it's a great tool as a reader and will probably never stop using it as a reader, I also know how easy it is to stumble upon absolutely cringeworthy reviews and/or comments. And I know if those were my books getting the beat down I'd definitely want to hide under the blankets with lots of loud music to distract me from the outside world. There's nothing wrong, as a reader, with disliking a book, negatively reviewing it or even giving a scathing, bashing review. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of this, I think. It could be seen as mean or it could be seen as critical analysis of books that (at least in the reviewer's opinion) aren't very good.

The problem -- and it's nobody's fault -- is that Goodreads is a strange little cross-section of the internet. It's reader-centric, but not reader-exclusive. Many authors have profiles and the meeting of authors, readers, and books makes it incredibly easy both for authors to find their negative reviews (either accidentally or accidentally-on-purpose) or for readers to complain and commiserate about a particular book or author's failings. In some ways I feel like the culture of Goodreads lends itself to more negativity than you'd find on book blogs or even Amazon reviews. On Goodreads it's as much about the readers as it is the book. And since readers are people and people sometimes like to complain together... well, you see what happens.

On another level there's a trend I've seen for a while that, as a reader, saddens me. It's reviewers who seem to be habitually unhappy with the books they read. Usually these are people who stick with a few genres or subgenres (fantasy, for instance, or dystopian) and -- seemingly without fail -- find the books they read horribly lacking. Either the characters were flat and cliche or the writing was subpar or details of the world-building just didn't work. These are all legitimate issues in books and I've complained about them myself in certain books. But with some readers there's a sense of superiority and the underlying message that they're better than the authors they're reading, the books being published today, the books they choose to read. It often culminates in bashing of the author or the entire genre in the review itself or comments below.

Even if I haven't read the book in question it often leaves me feeling a bit upset and I can't help but think if you're finding these huge, overwhelming problems in every single book in a certain genre, maybe you don't actually like the genre. Maybe the books just aren't a good fit for you. Maybe you used to like it and now you don't. Maybe it's time to find books you're going to enjoy, even if they're outside of your comfort zone. It makes me feel like readers are needlessly and consistently exposing themselves to books it's obvious they hate and then what's the point? After eighteen years of reading I don't know what the aim of this activity should be, but I know it shouldn't make you angry and hateful towards others.

Authors work hard on their words that, sadly, end up being a "product." It's one thing to critically review a book, point out its flaws, even rip it a new one if you think the book deserves it. But it's something else entirely to also bash the author and infuse your words with what comes off as disgust and a spiteful, superior attitude. There's something to be said for honesty delivered in a thoughtful way.

Opinions? Have you found that there's a negative atmosphere to Goodreads?

Blog Business, Etc.

A bit about giveaways, Goodreads, books I don't review, books I don't read, and Twitter.

Giveaways: I am horrible at hosting giveaways, which is why I typically just don't do it. Last month I ran a giveaway for Ruta Sepetys' beautiful debut novel, Between Shades of Gray. And as bad as I am at actually getting to the post office and sending the books, I'm apparently even worse about letting everyone know who won. Because there was a winner of that giveaway (congrats to Autumn!) and the book has been shipped and is on its way. HUGE apologies for not posting (or emailing) about it. This is why giveaways are such a rarity around here: not because I don't have books I want to give away, but just because I'm so bad about it.

Goodreads: I have two Goodreads accounts. One of them is my blog name (Ten Cent Notes) and is public, but rarely used. Though I always intend to cross-post my reviews, I hardly ever actually do it and the account sort of sits empty and sad and lifeless. The second account is this one, my personal account. This one is private, but it is where I keep track of the books I read and what I think of them (through ratings, but rarely cross-posted reviews). After everything I went through with reviewing, running a blog, and having publication goals at the same time I'm very protective of my personal Goodreads account. As much as is possible, I don't want it to be public information.

That being said, the personal account is still the one I use and the one you should go to if you want to become a friend on Goodreads. Like I said, I'm maybe a little over-protective and am definitely picky when it comes to who I accept friend requests from... at least for the time being, though this may change eventually.

Books I Read, But Don't Review/Read: In my IMM (In My Mailbox) and some of my list posts, I talk about books that aren't always YA. But when it comes to what I review, this is a YA book blog. If you want to get even more specific, I have a review policy that states what genres and subgenres I do and don't accept for review. I mention this because although I don't get a ton of review books, I do get some. And many of them are paranormal or fantasy, two genres I specifically state that I don't review. These are books that I know other readers and bloggers are looking forward to and when I get one in the mail I always feel bad about it because I know that I am not going to read this book. And -- unless I send it along to another blogger -- me receiving it isn't doing anybody any good.

Twitter: I love it. That is all.