I have written previously that I do not give star ratings much significance. While I may look at the aggregate star ratings on Goodreads for a quick assessment of how people have responded to a book, I generally do not attach a lot of importance to a single reviewer’s rating. Yes, a one-star rating might intrigue me and encourage me to read more. But that’s the thing. I always want to read more. Star ratings are highly personal and subjective and, on their own, they do signify much to me. The review is what tells me what the reader actually thought of the book, and why. The review is necessary to explain the star rating.
Still, many people, especially seemingly authors, attach a great deal of important to star ratings. One Tweet I saw a few weeks ago lumped three stars in with negative ratings, calling for readers to be “required” to explain any ratings of three stars and lower. The implication was that three stars is “bad” and the reader either needs to justify rating a book low, or is somehow obligated to provide authors with critical feedback so they can improve their craft. (I believe reviews are for readers and not authors, and authors should, for the sake of their own happiness, not read reviews of their books. But that is a topic for another day.) But I was perplexed. I personally do not see three stars as negative at all.
Three stars is, to me, an average rating–and that is not a bad thing. It is in the middle of five stars, after all, so, intuitively, I think of one and two stars as more negative and four and five as more positive. Three is potentially neutral, meaning the book is not a standout but it’s not terrible, either. And that’s not bad! It’s not bad to be average! But I could go even farther. Goodreads, a site many avid readers and book bloggers use, indicates that three stars means a reader “liked” a book. “Liking” is not negative. It’s positive!
As much as we might hate to admit it, most things are average. That is what average means. I probably rate most of the books I read around a three because, statistically, most things should be average. It is rare when I find a book that stands out from the rest. One that feels wholly original and exciting. One that might change my life. It is also rare that I find a book I absolutely cannot stand. But things being typical? That I expect!
Personally, I see three stars as either neutral or leaning on the slightly positive side, if we go by the Goodreads ranking. But it seems that many reviewers and authors disagree. And, that, at least means I will keep on reading reviews to discern the significance of any star ratings.
What do you think? Does three stars count as a negative rating?
Pages Unbound | Book Reviews & Discussions 
I think the problem is, in terms of aggregate scores, 3 is a bad rating. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more 4s and 5s given on Goodreads than there are 3s, 2s and 1s, and that makes a 3 bad. Yeah, it’s positive by their official ratings, but in that situation? I get authors being bummed out by it.
And that there is a good reason to not pay attention to ratings!
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That makes sense to me since I personally think that Goodreads ratings tend to skew high and that the readers there are more generous than I would be with ratings. So a book I think is merely okay will usually have over 4 stars. But that also means if I see a GR rating that is only in the 3-star area, I think the book must be bad indeed since that is a “low” aggregate rating, for the site.
But if individuals are just putting three stars on a book, I think it makes more sense to read their actual review/rating system criteria to get an idea of how they personally perceive that rating.
I don’t find ratings too useful for this reason, though–they are too subjective! And if they are on a site like Amazon, half the one star reviews might be about the packaging or the delivery and not the actual book content, anyway.
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All true. The systems there really don’t help the reader.
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When I give a 3 rating, it’s probably a meh book, just ok but not a memorable read, and abundantly mediocre! It’s usually a mixed bag review where I’m able to pick out a couple of elements I liked. I wouldn’t recommend a 3 star read unless I knew the book would be a specific match to a reader’s taste. For me a 3 skews toward the negative more than positive. I will give 3 stars for writing that includes excessive profanity which is so annoying. A 3 star read is a book I have finished (even if I skimmed it). Books I DNF fall into the 2 range. Giving stars is difficult!
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That is sometimes true for me! A three-star rating might be neutral for me, it might be slightly positive (usually), or it really good be just “meh,” okay. And that’s why I don’t really like looking at ratings anyway! They simply can’t give you all the relevant information!
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Star ratings are always subjective to the reader’s POV, as you say a written review with the rating will tell you more. Part of the problem is that Amazon now sees 3 star as negative. While ratings on Goodreads and Amazon also vary slightly (or they used to and some reviewers will post different ratings on different sites.)
A few years ago – it used to be this:
Amazon – 5* – Loved it, 4* – liked it, 3* – it was okay, 2* – did not like it, 1* – hated it.
Goodreads – 5*- Amazing, 4* – really liked it, 3* – like it, 2* – it was okay, 1* – did not like it.
Then you have the fact that these rating bands are so wide that often reviewers add in their own half stars, which when posting on GR or Amazon then have to be rounded up or down, which becomes subjective.
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Oh, how interesting! I didn’t realize Amazon sees three stars as negative! Those reviews I always take with a grain of salt anyway since if you read them a bunch will end up giving one star because they didn’t like the box the book came in or something wholly unrelated to the actual book and its contents.
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Like you, I think of 3 stars as being fairly positive. My 3 star reads tend to be books that are OK. I enjoyed them but they weren’t stand out in any way. They can often be quite hard to review for me. Other 3 star reviews might be where I have mixed feelings about a book. I might give three stars when there are elements that I really didn’t like but it was generally good
I hate having to give star ratings and would much rather just post the review😀
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This makes sense to me! I think of three stars as a mix of things. It didn’t really stand out, but it wasn’t horrible. It was decent. I don’t think of that as a strictly “negative” review, even if as an author it might feel like anything under 5 stars is personal.
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I’m of the opinion that 3 star ratings reflect a positive review – it’s bang in the middle of the rating system meaning that it is a good read… not outstanding, but good. And sometimes good books are just the thing you need. Something easily digestible, not to traumatic or overly complicated. An easy read.
I think this whole issue around 3 stars being negative is that authors are more and more relying on social platforms like Goodreads and sales platforms like Amazon to market their books and a 3 star rating affects the algorithm as to whether their novel gets put up for recommendation, or the higher the novel gets listed in search results. Which I think is a bad road to go down because as you mentioned in your post – reviews are for readers, not for authors… and authors should not be cajoling readers to skew their reviews to market books. Neither should authors be expecting a review from readers in the first place (or a critique of the novel for their justification/benefit) The transaction ends once the reader has purchased a novel (or borrowed it from a library) anything after that is a bonus.
It would be a different matter if you signed up to be a part of a street team for a novels launch. But most of the time good and bad reviews even out to give a star rating pretty close to what I have come to discover upon reading the novel myself. Plus I read a lot of reviews – good and bad – before buying a book so I know a little bit of what I’m in for. Bad reviews do not turn me off purchasing a book.
It’s a little bit like that Instagram issue a few years back counting the number of ‘likes’ before they removed that option from the site. If you believe in your book and your skill as an author then star reviews won’t matter so much because you are passionate about your writing and you will find your demographic.
Working in a creative industry is hard because you really put yourself out there when you craft a novel – and then discover that some people just don’t like it, or don’t get it… you can get passionate feelings about it. But you have to remind yourself that the review is not about you, it’s just someone else’s POV from their life experiences… not everyone is a match.
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Yes, I agree so much! I think of three stars as pretty positive. Not every book is going to be outstanding and life-changing. But not every book needs to be.
People read books for plenty of reasons and if a book allows them to relax for a bit, or makes them consider a new viewpoint, or gives them a bit of escapism, the book has done its job, even if it isn’t going to win ten awards.
Putting a book out in the world is no doubt scary, and I’m sure it’s tempting to feel that people who don’t five-star it just “didn’t get it.” But people have different tastes. That’s life. And that’s also why negative reviews don’t actually dissuade me from reading a book as often as I think authors fear. I can read a negative review and recognize that the reviewer has different tastes than I do. Something that didn’t work for them could still work for me, so I will still read a book after reading a negative review.
It is a shame that sites like Amazon and Goodreads are using algorithms in a way that seems…maybe threatening? to authors. Of course you want your book to do well and you don’t want the algorithm to consign your title to obscurity. Yet pressuring readers to leave positive reviews for marketing purposes is not the way to address your concerns.
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I agree – I think of 3 stars as being on the positive side. If I rate something as 3 stars it usually means I enjoyed it but it won’t stick with me or I enjoyed bits of it but on balance enjoyed more than I disliked. Middle of the road – not amazing but finished it.
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Yes, that makes sense! Three stars means it’s not going to become my favorite book ever, but that doesn’t mean it was bad!
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I view 3 stars as neutral on the side of positive. For me, it means I had some concerns with the book, but there were things I enjoyed in it too. The good and the bad balance out into a perfectly average 3 star rating, like you said. It’s when the bad starts to negatively impact my experience of the book that I go lower in rating, or the good outweighs the negative (if there is any) that I go higher.
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Yes, exactly! I don’t think of three stars as bad at all! More like it was a solid read, but not a standout.
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You said it so perfectly! This is exactly how I see a 3 star rating. It’s average/neutral. I rate quite a lot of books 3 stars because they don’t wow me enough to class it 4 stars. 4 stars is something that spoke to me, but didn’t hit me where it was an outstanding 5 star read. That’s not to say I didn’t like the 3 star reads I read, just that they were good, but not amazing.
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Yeah, I think I rate most books three, then four if I really liked it. And five is pretty rare. I think I don’t tend to read too many books I really dislike because I have a pretty good sense of what books I enjoy and I’m not often selecting books that really don’t align with my reading tastes.
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How funny – it wouldn’t have occurred to me to think of 3 stars as negative. True, it’s not jumping up and down to rave about a book, but it’s not bad either. As you said, most things are average. That’s what average means! I tend to end up with more 4 star books (and sometimes even 5), but that’s at least partially because I’m much pickier these days about which books I choose to read.
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I suppose I could see how authors might feel three stars are “bad” because they’re hoping for higher ratings, but I imagine that’s not how the average reviewer thinks. It might feel a bit personal to receive three stars on a book, but it’s really not.
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For me, 3 stars is a mixed opinion, some points I liked while some I didn’t. but that doesn’t mean book is bad. It’s my opinion, people often forget that about reviews in general. What I found negative might be positive for someone else and what others found negative, I actually might like it. My 3 stars can be 4 for someone while 2 for the other or 5 for someone. All in all, I wouldn’t call 3 stars really a negative but I wouldn’t even call it positive. It can be good or really good but it’s not the best book in my opinion. This is an interesting topic and I would like to see what readers say about this topic in the comments.
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So true! Negative reviews don’t necessarily deter me from reading a book because reading is subjective and what bothers another reader might not bother me! It’s easy I suppose to take reviews personally as an author, but a bad review often just means people have different tastes, which is totally normal!
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For me, 3 stars would mean “it’s fine as a book, it just doesn’t work for me” whereas 4 stars is “I liked this book”. So I tend to rate things 4 stars because I tend to like the books I can finish – 3 stars are much rarer (though they can be great food for thought in the long run, if they are nonfiction)
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Makes sense to me! 😀
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3 stars to me is an ok book. It means I didn’t absolutely hate but I didn’t absolutely love it either. I had a good time reading it but at the same time I had some problems with it as well. 3 stars is definitely not a negative rating in my opinion.
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I can see that! It’s sort of neutral!
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Exactly! I see three stars as neutral or liked. In fact, I particularly have tabs like ‘liked it’ ‘loved it’ or ‘meh’ that I categorise books with. I think the tabs are public on Goodreads so that gives everyone a better sense as well. I just go with my gut for a rating.
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The tabs seem helpful!
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3 stars is definitely not negative!! Sometimes it’s not even average- a lot of the times for me, it means there were things I enjoyed, but there were enough flaws in it that I can’t outright recommend it. People are so overly critical of ratings and I do understand that a little bit… but when I see arguments like this, I think it’s being taken too far.
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Yeah, I can see authors might feel like ratings are personal and be tempted to read a lot into them and worry about them. But, for many reviewers, it’s not that deep and it’s definitely not personal.
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I honestly often give out 3 star rating because to me 3 star is like you say neutral. 3 star books for me is the books the I enjoyed but there were some issues that disappointed me or didn’t quite meet my expectation. I never view it as being bad. Because if three is bad how do you find a balance when you want to label something as neutral? When I review I try to point out things I did like about the work but also things that justifies my lower rating.
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Right? The middle should be sort of neutral! That only makes sense!
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Absolutely not! I believe that three stars is just above average (out of five) because exactly half of five is 2.5 stars! If a book seems like it can’t get at least 2.5 stars, I won’t finish reading it, as I don’t want to waste time on books that are below average.
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I like your thinking! Very mathematical!
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I absolutely agree! I have this conversation with my students all the time in regard to their grades. When we, as a culture, lost the “C = average = good (unless you’re an expert)” it made everyone’s life harder. Now A’s don’t mean much so students have to fill their lives with extracurricular activities to get into college. But if C’s were acceptable and A’s just for true mastery, than everyone’s lives would be easier. That’s the same thing here. There’s nothing wrong with three stars. And, as you pointed out above, if that bothers an author than it’s on them to a) not read reviews and/or b) deal with their own issues which make a “bad” review threatening so they can live happier lives.
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Yeah, I really don’t see the problem with earning a “C” as long as it truly means that someone is average and has competently understood the assignment. There’s nothing wrong with average. Most of us are!
And I feel so sorry for young people these days because the bar keeps getting raised higher. I don’t think someone should have to have all A’s and be in band and in three sports and start their own business to get into college! College is about learning, anyway. What does your ability to play tuba and do gymnastics have to do with it unless you are also playing tuba and doing gymnastics for the school?? And it’s exhausting! Most adults don’t work that hard! They don’t go to work all day and then join three clubs and write a novel just because they think they need to to get by in life.
I was reading the other day that people are now publishing papers to try to get into undergrad! A few years ago, people were doing that just to get into grad school and I thought that was awful. There was a time when no one published until they were actually hired as a professor! Now you have to be published in high school???
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I haven’t heard that yet but sadly I can’t say I’m surprised :/. That’s so disheartening. And so needless! Like you said, college is the place where you’re supposed to sample and learn and figure out where you’re headed. There’s no need to put such pressure on high school kids.
And like you said, the bar keeps getting higher! So where will we be in five years’ time? Ten years? Twenty? I keep hoping the pendulum will swing backwards to a more realistic level but that may be a desire anchored in hope over experience…
I remember writing a paper in undergrad using Jaques Derrida’s theology of the gift and atonement/forgiveness as the lens through which to analyze Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement.’ The novel was relatively new, only just out in paperback, and the scholarship on it was limited at that time. My professor told me I should publish it! Which was great…except I had NO IDEA how to do that and my professor wasn’t exactly helpful on sorting it. I was a senior in college and I didn’t know the first thing about academic publishing! How would a senior in high school? And who would even expect me, as a high school teacher, to be guiding my students to publish?? What high school student has that level of comfort and skill in their writing?? I’ve worked with a handful in the last twelve years who could’ve pulled it off but…yeah, the idea – along with the ever-rising expectations – just makes my heart hurt for my kids.
Also, if all your life is all class and homework and extracurriculars and lessons and the like, when are you supposed to have time to have the life experiences which would make for engaging, unique, and captivating writing?!? Bah. It’s all nuts.
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