At the end of my reviews, be they big reviews, short reviews or mini reviews, I give books a rating out of 5.
I decide this based on how much I enjoyed the experience of reading the book, rather than on what might be called “literary merit” which means that I might give a high rating to something that could not objectively be called a masterpiece. Don’t get me wrong, good writing is important too but surely the whole point of reading is the enjoyment that you get from it? If I don’t enjoy a book, I’m not going to give it a high mark just because it was written well.
1/5 = I didn’t enjoy this book. It wasn’t for me
2/5 = There were things to like about this book, but overall they didn’t balance out the things that I didn’t enjoy.
3/5 = This book was okay. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it either.
4/5 = This book was pretty good but not amazing. Maybe I really enjoyed it but didn’t think the writing was great or maybe I thought the writing was great but that it wasn’t as enjoyable as I thought it should be.
5/5 = This book was BRILLIANT. It was well written and enjoyable. I’d really recommend it.