When starting out my book blog, I had to decide how I was going to rate books. Essentially, what kind of book blogger am I going to be? Was I going to be the kind of book blogger that rarely doled out 4 stars and 5 stars? Was I going to be the type of book reviewer that would only review books I found 4 or 5 stars? Or would I be the type of reviewer who would post even the low reviews?
I decided to be the type of reviewer who isn’t stingy with the 4 or 5 stars and I do my best to post a review of every book I read. Many people may see that and think “Oh, she’s not going to be honest with her reviews! She’s just going to be TOO positive.” And here I say: I’ve been honest in my reviews and it’s hard for a book to get below three stars for me. Especially if I finished the book.
If you took a look at my goodreads, you’d notice there are few one and two star reviews. I’m not going to call out those books on this post. You can find my goodreads here if you are interested.
Now, what would it take for a book to get below three stars?
I don’t care about the characters.
This is my biggest thing. If I don’t care about the characters, I’m going to struggle with reading the work. If I don’t find SOMETHING interesting about the character, it’s probably not going to be highly rated in my eyes. And I know characters are author’s babies, at times, but if I can’t find myself to feel something for them, it’s a lot like being shown the 50th picture of a generic looking baby.
Incomplete or Inconsistent Worldbuilding
This could also be called Lazy Worldbuilding. I’m going to be one of those people who say it’s okay if there’s one mistake in a book. Like, if the characters eyes were green at the start of the book and somehow became blue or brown by the end or in the next book, I’m not likely to notice. But if there are multiple inconsistencies or the worldbuilding feels incomplete, like there was a piece never explored or explained, then I’m probably going to be put off about the book.
All The Interesting Scenes are Told and Not Shown
Many times authors have to balance the scenes they are going to lay out with detail and information the reader needs to know but there is no scene for it. Most of the time, I don’t see many problems with this. Just…just don’t tell me about the rousing speech which saved the main characters life. If it’s important and integral to the plot and you’re already explaining it by telling me about it, then show it in scene! I want to see what the speech was!
And there it is. The main reasons why I would rate a book below three stars. And often times, it has to be more than one of these things. Thank you for reading!
May you get lost in a book,
Chrissy