Guide to How I Rate Books and Products
When I write a review for a book or product, I often will include a rating. The following are the types of ratings that you will see on my website and what they mean.
Ratings Explained
I really like how Goodreads has their rating system. I purposely set up my ratings here to reflect the same idea.
Five stars means that all of the story elements came together very well for me, and I will very likely tell ALL of my friends about it for weeks to come. 🙂 For a product, it means that I have no suggestions for improvement.
I will give a book four stars if I truly enjoyed it. It may have had one tiny little element missing like an issue with the plot or characters who weren’t superbly developed.
Three stars isn’t a bad rating for me. It means that I enjoyed the book but maybe there was a little depth missing.
If I rate something two stars, that means that I feel that there are significant improvements that can be made, and I will very likely make suggestions.
When I write a one-star review, which is a pretty rare occurrence, it means that there were some significant flaws that need some polishing or that I felt there was significant action, conflict, etc.
Content Review Guide
I (and likely some of you) prefer to know if a book contains questionable content. There are times when you might pick up a book at the library or at a book store and not realize there’s strong language or explicit scenes. Because I read secular and Christian content, on occasion I will include one of the following guidelines that you’ll see below. If you do NOT see a content suggestion on my content posted after today’s date (2/12/18), then you can consider the book to be safe for reading.
If you see the green caution, that means that there’s no profanity, violence, bedroom scenes, or other content that could otherwise be considered disturbing.
The yellow MILD caution indicates that there may be some mild language, mild romantic, suggestive scenes but no descriptions or details, mild violence (though no detailed description), or other content to be aware of.
Orange HIGH caution means that there could be a significant amount of mild profanity but no strong language such as f-bombs. Also, you may find moderately suggestive romance scenes, moderately detailed violence, etc.
The red STRONG caution is one I don’t expect to use at all, because I’ve never inadvertently agreed to review a book that has very strong content matter. However, I will never say never, so I’m including this rating suggestion just in case. With this rating, you can expect some strong profanity, strong violence, or strong and descriptive romantic scenes.
