How I Rate Books, and Why You Should Too!

I love reading reviews- it is one of my favorite pastimes! Sometimes I will sit on Goodreads reading reviews for hours, trying to find my next read. Other times, I just need a book to start/finish my day or an audiobook to quickly start before beginning laundry or house cleaning, and I just want to skip the pick and chose process and just get into it. In these situations, I like to go through reviews quickly just trying to feel out the vibe.

When I review a book, I not only like to describe what I liked about the characters, the writing or the plot, but I also like to give a quick vibe check at the bottom. This is where I will have a short list rating the overall book itself (which is my actual rating of the book), and then I add the level of romance, spice and darkness. These are not ratings but more of a measurement of those things within the book. Those are just a few of the main "vibes" I personally look for… pretty much always, when choosing a book to fit my mood- so I like to make it easy to find, at the end of every rating.

Before you start reading my reviews, I have broken down exactly what my ratings mean, and how I reach my "vibe" levels and my overall ratings . Not only will this help you when searching for your next read, but this can also be used as a guide for your own reviews and rating systems.

Overall Ratings

Let's start off with a books overall score. This is how I rate a book based on everything such as the writing, the plot, the characters, the predictability and my overall feels throughout the book. My overall ratings are scored on a 1-5 star system, five stars being the highest score.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Totally amazing my new favorite! Ever you needs to read this book Twill be thinking about it and recommending it nonstop!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So good great writing. loved it and will recommend

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Enjoyed this book, decent writing

⭐️⭐️

I mean... I didn't hate it? Someone probably likes it?

⭐️

What did I just read? Trash.

Romance Levels

🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

Nothing but romance! ooey gooey, "no you hang up, OTT, nauseating kind of love

🩷🩷🩷🩷

Super romantic, full of sweet gestures, pet names, and OTT surprises.

🩷🩷🩷

Romance for sure, but also a lot of other things going on (my personal favorite)

🩷🩷

A little bit of romance

🩷

Very little romance

Spice Levels

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Pure debauchery - 100% filth. Ton's of descriptive scenes, with a lot of imagination and in all the ways!

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Lot's of descriptive scenes, dirty talk, and creativity

🌶️🌶️🌶️

Decent amount of descriptive scenes and steamy moments

🌶️🌶️

Basic, not a lot of scenes or desorption

🫑

Closed Door / No Spice

Darkness Levels

☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

All the trigger warnings, darker than dark. sick and twisted, read at your own risk!

☠️☠️☠️☠️

Lots of trigger warnings, very dark, not for the raint or heart

☠️☠️☠️

Some trigger warnings, dark topic’s.

☠️☠️

Disturbing scenes

☠️

Morally gray, slightly questionable scenes

Final Thots

I used to just rate books with no real method to my madness, I would just rate them however I felt it should be rated at the time of the review, which worked well for me for a long time. Then I began joining more and more bookclubs and reccomending more books to more and more people. I started to notice that my ratings didn't have a solid system to which I followed making them not mean much (to me or to other people). That's when I decided to sit down and come up with this system, that I now stick to every time. It makes recommending books or even going back through my read books for myself so much easier. I cannot recommend everyone doing this, even if it is just writing down a brief system in notes on your phone or by hand in your reading journal. I can guarantee you wont regret it!

Happy Reading!