Hi guys, welcome back to my blog! Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time dissecting my reading tastes and paying a lot of attention to my Goodreads page and my general reading tastes and I discovered that my avergae rating on Goodreads (which I’ve actively been on since 2015) is 3.52 (interestingly my average rating has gone down since I outlined this post last week – it was 3.53).
So, my average rating on Goodreads is 3.52 and I’ve always said that I think 3 stars is a solid rating for a book, and maybe that’s why I give out so many 3 star average ratings I honestly don’t know. But, I’ve been noticing lately that while I read a lot of books and I read relatively broadly from middle grade to adult and in different genres within those age groups. soo many of the books I read, while I like them and would recommend them, are usually 3 stars or somewhere within that 3 star range.
So yeah, today I’m sort of rambling on about how I think I’m losing faith, or maybe confidence is a better word? in my reading tastes. and how I’m reading a lot of books and while I’m liking most of them, I’m not loving them and it’s sort of bringing me down? Like, I just want to be loving books again! I don’t want to change how I read or the quanity or where or when or even what because I genuinely love the groove I’ve gotten into. I just want to understand how to get myself to stop pikcing up average books!
I can’t remember the last 5 star book I read becuase, while I’ve read over 100 books this year, I’ve only rated 2 or 3 books a 4 or 4.5 and I think I’ve only rated 2 graphic novels 5 stars out of the 103 books I’ve read this year. And honestly, I have never had a problem with rating a book 3 stars because that means I still liked it whereas a 1 or 2 means it was either awful (in my eyes) or super problematic. But a 4 is reserved for something I thought was amazing and such a good read and a 5 is like, stella, would read again highly recommend heart for eyes kind of thing.
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve become a more critical reader over the years or if I’m just losing touch with my taste in books. For example, just a couple of years ago I would have rated the first Harry Potter 5 stars but now I give it a 3 and I love that. I love that I’ve become more aware of the way I’m reading and what I’m reading but I just wish I was picking up more 5 star reads. I know I said this before, but I honestly miss the feeling of reading a new story and just loving it. I recently buddy read the Check, Please duology with Destiny and I rated both volumes 5 stars because I had so much fun reading them and I loved all the charcaters and it just genuinely made me so happy to be in the world for a little while with the characters and I want to get back to that feeling.
I love how I read and I don’t want to change that and I wouldn’t take back any of the books I’ve been reading either, I just wish I understood better how to pick ’em! I feel like so often lately I’ve had the option to pick book a or book b and I’ve inevitabely been picking a 3 star out of my choices. Sorry about this rambly discussion guys, I guess I just had to get my frustrations out and self-iso is really enabling my bad moods! 😅 So, I guess my point is this; how do you pick your 5 star reads? Is it all guess work? Are you able to correctly predict a 5 star read? What’s your average rating on goodreads?
WHAT’S YOUR AVERAGE BOOK RATING?
DO YOU LIKE HOW YOU RATE & READ BOOKS?
allonsythornraxx 
So I have a 3.89 average rating on Goodreads, which I think makes sense. I tend to rate most of my books either 3 or 4 stars. For me a 3 star is an okay rating, that can range from me feeling meh about a book, to me enjoying a book, but finding it forgettable. 4 star ratings are for the books I really enjoyed, would recommend, and would re-read, just aren’t absolute favorites.
I think that the reason that my average is so high, even though I’m a very critical reader, is because I’ve really narrowed down the books that I enjoy. Also, I put down all the books that I don’t enjoy right from the beginning.
I don’t know if I have any advice to help with this problem because I don’t think you’re able to predict which books will be favorites, but maybe try reading new releases you’re really excited for that have had good reviews? I find that I usually rate those book pretty high since I was already interested in them and other people have done the work of testing out how enjoyable the book actually was for me!
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I think that a 3 star rating is a good rating but I just wish I was rating books a bit higher and knew how to pick my next reads a bit better. I guess I should be happier that I’m not getting 1 or 2 star reads.
I used to know exactly the types of books I liked to read so I had a lot more 4 and 5 stars. I think, now that I’ve thought about it more, I have so many 3 star reads in my average, it’s probably because I’ve been reading so many iconic YA tropey books from 2010-ish and I haven’t been DNFing very often this year.
I think I’m going to try and add more new releases to my tbr for the rest of the year! I definitely haven’t been reading enough of them this year!
Thanks Malka!
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I’m going through a similar stage, where I feel that I’m more and more demanding with my readings, and sometimes I wonder if I’m being too demanding, you know? Because I rarely give 5 stars, it has to be absolutely perfect for me, but hey, I think that somehow makes the 5 stars even more special when they happen. And actually I just gave my first 5 stars of the year and it feels SO good 😊
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Yeah, I’ve been reading more analytically this year and I think that’s been impacting my ratings but hopefully, they’ll balance out towards the end of the year or in 2021! I guess I’m playing the slow game now… 😂
5 stars are rare for me too, but I’m hoping that incorporating some new releases in with my backlist reads will help since hopefully, they’re less… cringey? I agree, having less 5 star reads 100% makes them so much more special and I love it when they pop up!!
OOh, what was it??
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It was Black Girl Unlimited!!! Absolutely brilliant, I highly recommend it 😍👏🏻
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I’ve totally been here, I feel you! I hope you do have more 4- and 5-star reads in the near future! Do you think maybe you need a change of genres for a little while? That has helped me in the past!
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I am really hoping that slowly incorporating in more new releases into my tbr for the rest of the year will help! I’m also hoping that like you said, a slight genre change could help me get out of my 3-star slump!
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