Buy | Borrow | Accept | Avoid
I want to be rather clear about what I mean by these words; although they seem rather obvious to me, my husband assures me that people may not understand the inner workings of my mind.
To get an Avoid rating, a book probably annoyed the living beejesus out of me for some reason, and I am kind of sad that I wasted time reading it. Some of my Avoid books of the year: Glengarry Glen Ross, The Great Lover,
To get an Accept rating, a book must entertain me and/or make me think, but probably didn't make me do both. Accept(able) books are good reads that I enjoy and promptly forget. Quite a few guilty pleasures fall into this category as well as intellectual books that weren't entertaining. Some of my Accept books of the year: Coraline the Graphic Novel, The Alcoholic, The Age of Innocence,
To get a Borrow rating, a book must be entertaining, thought-provoking, and memorable. Some of my Borrow books of the year: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Battle of the Labyrinth, gods behaving badly,
To get a Buy rating, a book must blow my mind to tiny little pieces and then reassemble them in a new and delightful way. Some of my Buy books of the year: Fingersmith, Ender's Game, Paper Towns,
Obviously the majority of my books will fall into the Accept or Borrow ratings. I steer clear of books that have a high likelihood of annoying me, and it is a rare book that reaches mind-blowing status. I say this because I want everyone to know that receiving an Accept rating is not a bad thing. I like Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series and if you have the time and desire, I would recommend reading them, but all of them would still receive an Accept rating.
Hopefully all of this makes sense. Now I have to decide if I'm going to backtrack this year and add in the ratings for my already-read books.
I love this sounds like a pretty good speed. I have basically two speeds. recommended and highly recommended and you have to read my review to figure out the rest. I find it very difficult to quantify these kind of things.
ReplyDeleteI have too hard of a time quantifying too, and I realize that's because I read meaningful books differently than fun books. I can give a fun book 4 stars on Goodreads because I was entertained, even though I won't remember it later and it didn't really make an impact on me. A 4-star classic, on the other hand, is a brilliant, wonderful thing.
ReplyDeleteNah I'm pretty sure your husband just doesn't understand the inner workings of bookish people's minds ;) I LOVE the rating system!
ReplyDeleteGreat rating system. I often over-think my ratings, but I trust the review itself helps to clarify. I like your breakdowns!
ReplyDeleteI am such an accountant, because I did the five star thing. But I like yours much better. I wish I could change mine, but I've been at it for over a year, and I'm too lazy now to go back. Suffice it to say that most of mine fall in the 3.5 to 4.5 range.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a good rating system to have! I've gone back and forth on having one too but have still decided not to do one. I like how you've explained what each of yours mean... I think it's a little less subjective having the words and descriptions like that.
ReplyDeleteLove your ratings. I may talk about mine!
ReplyDeleteThat's an excellent way to rate books. Billy will occasionally give a two hooves up, and I'll yell at people to go read a book, but that's as close as I can come to a rating system.
ReplyDeleteAnd hey, when did you change your background? I like it! Especially the flowers in the bottom corner.
ReplyDeleteNicole - Same here; it's just so difficult to assign value when the number of factors are overwhelming!
ReplyDeleteAmanda - That was always my problem too. How do I give both Hamlet and Harry Potter five stars. I feel better without the stars though; telling people to buy both of them seems more fitting.
Amy - That is too true. He's definitely not a reader.
Bibliolatrist - The review is definitely the important part.
Sandy - Numbers and I have never gotten along, so the star system never worked for me. Hopefully this will.
Jenny - I always feel a need to explain myself. :) Feel free to steal and modify if you'd like.
Pam - I'd love to see how you break down your ratings!
Jill - Thanks! I keep going back and forth on ratings, but I wanted some way to sort through labels, so I think I'm going to do it through ratings. And thanks! I changed it recently and so far I love it; much cleaner than the old one.
I LOVE this, and I think you've devised the most brilliant rating scheme in the whole of the blogosphere!
ReplyDeleteI like the rating system. It works and I like it much better than the 5 stars etc...
ReplyDeleteI put a rating on my Amazon reviews but currently, not on my reviews on my posts... I am hopeful that the gushing (or lack there of) in my reviews will tell the reader what I thought. :)
Andi - Thanks! Wow, I feel so special right now. :)
ReplyDeleteSheila - I just wanted a way to label the posts so that I can click on a label and get a list of my top books, so I made buy, borrow, accept, and avoid labels. :)
Nice of your hubby to remind you from time to time that not everyone gets the inner workings of your mind ... maybe we all need that kind of reality check from time to time. :-P I love the rating system, especially the way you described how you evaluate books. Brilliantly done!
ReplyDeleteI like the rating system -- it's more descriptive than stars but still lets you do some sort of ranking.
ReplyDeleteI am getting used to your blog, I'm slow like that. Then I can take in your post. I'm like a dog, I have to sniff around first..be back soon.
ReplyDeleteStephanie - He keeps me grounded. The practical to my spontaneous, the specific to my abstract. Gotta love him!
ReplyDeleteKim - Exactly what I was shooting for.
Alexandra - Haha! Love it!
I love it!!! I love "action-based" recommendations, and I'm glad you explained yourself!!
ReplyDeleteJenners - I like the phrase 'action-based'. It sounds powerful and aggressive. :)
ReplyDelete"Fingersmith" is currently in my TBR pile.
ReplyDeleteI guess I should move it up? :)
I haven't employed a rating system on my blog but I love when other bloggers do--it makes it easy to know where they stand.
ReplyDeleteNikola - Absolutely! I just loved it.
ReplyDeleteStephanie - I felt it was a good way to assign labels - a way for me to easily see which books should make my end of year Best Reads list. ;)
Wish I had thought of this ;)
ReplyDeleteStacy - Feel free to steal it/modify it/etc., whatever you like!
ReplyDeleteI like your rating system. I've been thinking about adding one, but I'm not sure yet. I usually assign star ratings in my end-of-the-year recap, though.
ReplyDeleteAnna - Thanks. It was a tough call on whether to add one or not since ratings are so subjective and thoughts on a book can change from day to day; but I wanted a way to categorize my books in labels.
ReplyDeleteI like your rating system. Seemed pretty easy to follow.
ReplyDeleteI usually don't use ratings but have a poll up on the blog to see what everyone else thinks...who knows I might take everyone's advice and get my own rating system.
I do rate books at the end of the year for my best of list!
Serena - The end of the year list is really why I started doing this. It seemed like a good way to rate them as I went to make the end of the year "best of" list a bit easier.
ReplyDelete