Here’s a comment from fellow blogger, Magdalen, which I’ve re-posted here.
I have a question about grading.
So I read Bliss by Judy Cuevas yesterday (started after a bad day in court — I’m a lawyer a few hours each week and this week’s hours did not go well for me! — and finished last night) and had to explain to my husband why it was so annoying.
I get it that it’s a very very well-written book. But the characters were borderline annoying and the situation that the author got them into was either preposterous for a romance, or depressingly like real life. I actually wanted the book to be the latter — a story without a happy ending. Certainly, I didn’t think the hero & heroine had done enough to a) grow up, b) learn anything, c) evolve into smarter/better people. And the HEA came because someone else (who really should have been watching his only child get married, yes?) was literally TSTL, although I gather from the epilogue that he did actually survive his own stupidity.
(I apologize to anyone who loves/loved Bliss. I’m not right per se, just explaining my reaction to the book.)
By contrast, I had read Debra Mullins’ Two Weeks With a Stranger just before this. Now, that wasn’t an A-rated book, and when I read it I could see why. But it just didn’t offend me the way Bliss did. It was silly & fluffy and so no specific bits of silliness or fluff stand out as being offensive to my tender sensibilities as a reader.
Which brings me to my question for Sarah and others: Which bothers you more: a dim book that is neither very well done nor disappointing in any one respect (call it a solid C), or a very well written, carefully crafted book that misses the mark of a great romance at the very end, falling from a great height with a distinct splat (so you don’t know whether to average all the great writing with the annoyance and give it, say, a B — or grade it on its failures and give it a D)?
Great question, Magdalen!
Personally, I find well-written books which fall flat at the end more disappointing than a book which is an average read from start to finish. When I grade books, my overall enjoyment level is paramount. This includes how well the book is written, how engaged I was in the story, and the appeal of the characters. I don’t expect every book I read to be excellent. An average read means the book delivered but did not rise above many others in its particular genre. I also don’t differentiate between genres when grading. For example, ‘The Gargoyle’ is a work of literary fiction. ‘Too Good to be True’ by Kristan Higgins is a light contemporary romance. Both books were ‘A’ reads for me due to the level of satisfaction I had when reading them and the positive impression I was left with once I’d finished.
I would also mark down a book which did not remain true to the expectations of its genre. If a book is labelled a romance, it must have a HEA. I have no problem reading love stories which don’t contain a HEA (‘The Time Taveller’s Wife, for example) but they have no business calling themselves a romance. Similarly, I have to agree with the people who objected to J.R. Ward’s abrupt change of genres mid-series. If readers are led to expect a certain type of story, and buy a book on that basis, the book should follow through.
What do others think?
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Did I miss something? What is a HEA and a TSTL? A Headless Equine Appendictomy and a Totally Stupid Tipsy Lemur?
@Andrea HEA = Happily Ever After/Happy Ever After and TSTL = Too Stupid Too Live. I like your versions, though!
This is the reason I don’t grade. I don’t think I can apply grades consistently. You also hit something I’ve been mulling over (post in draft *g*). I always expect a book to wow me (except on the rare occasions when I expect, based on reviews, a particular book to suck). I don’t actually like average reads. I’d be more forgiving of a book if it displays flashes of brilliance even if it falls off the wagon towards the end. This is why I’m still reading the BDB.
@Kat That’s an interesting viewpoint. When I started the blog, I debated leaving grades out altogether and letting the reviews speak for themselves. I agree with you that grades are subjective and one person’s understanding of a B – might be different to my own. I’m looking forward to reading your post when you finish it.
I think your reasons for continuing to follow J.R. Ward’s BDB series are similar to mine. The product placement and world-building inconsistencies are jarring, but there are enough positives that I keep coming back for more.
That said, I really don’t need every book I read to be brilliant. If I’m looking for a story to entertain me for a few hours, I’m content with a forgettably average book. Average to me doesn’t equate bad. It’s just not a book I’d rave about or want to read again. I’d prefer all books to be fantastic but that’s not realistic.
Well, I clearly don’t have the answers, or I wouldn’t have posed the question. But I will say this: I was much more disappointed with Bliss than I was with the Karen Mullins book. On the other hand, I’ll remember Bliss a whole lot longer! I may have found it infuriating, but it is quite distinctive!
To Andrea — you are quite right, I should have spelled out the acronyms. I only just learned them, and they are wonderful, particularly TSTL for “too stupid to live.” (Haven’t we all encountered a character — from TV, movies or books — who really didn’t live up to basic expectations of the intelligence necessary to survive the story?) Of course, in slasher movies these people do actually die. And in real life, we have the Darwin Awards, tongue-in-cheek references to news items where someone died accidentally due to his/her own stupidity.
I agree with Kat–this is exactly the reason I don’t give stars or grades in my reviews. Some books are very easy to quantify based on your enjoyment, but enjoyment is so subjective. Even for the person reading! If I’m in a bad mood I’m not going to enjoy a book so much, and that’s not the book’s fault.
@Magdalen What particularly annoys me about Too Stupid To Live characters is that they are usually female!
@heidenkind I sometimes wonder how much my mood affects my perception of a book. As you say, it’s subjective and grades are not the be all and end all.
Maili mentioned on Twitter that review sites which include grades tend to be more popular. I didn’t know that. I decided to put in grades because of my own preferences when I visit review sites. I tend to skim reviews of books I know I want to read, focusing on the opening paragraph and the end grade. Then I go back and read the whole review once I’ve read the book in question.
This is an excellent question. I have been writing reviews for all the books I read for a year and half now. Before that, I always gave the books I read a grade but I didn’t write reviews until I started my blog. I follow a criteria, based on my attention span when reading the book. If I am engrossed in a story and don’t want to put it down, or don’t hear my children calling my name when reading it, then this book will get a high grade from me.
For example, take such books like A Kingdom of Dreams, or Sweet Savage Love. Those books have characters that did wicked, stupid things that I despised. They were able to provoke a strong negative reaction from me, and yet I couldn’t put the book down. I was emotionally involved whether I wanted to be or not and A Kingdom of Dreams got an A grade and Sweet Savage Love got a B-.
There have been books that couldn’t hold my attention. I would put the book down and not really have a desire to pick it up again. These books I usually give a C grade or lower. An example of this would be Lara Adrian’s vampire series. For whatever reason, her writing fails to hook me. I read the first three of her vampire series and finally gave up, but I know there are a lot of other people who love her books. Go figure.
Grading is completely subjective. I think most people realize this and that is why it is good to have a review along with a grade. It’s easier if you find a reviewer who shares the same tastes as you. Of course, there will always be exceptions to the rule.
@Jill D. I also graded books for years and kept notes on what I’d read. Then it got to the point where my notes were so detailed that I figured I might as well turn them into reviews.
When I read other people’s reviews, I do look at the grade but I pay more attention to what they say in the review. Occasionally. I’ve bought books on the basis of bad or average reviews because I knew the reviewer’s tastes differed to mine.
@Sarah I also skim to the end to look at the grade on sites that have grading, but I think I actually read the review less in those cases. It is more convenient, though.
@heidenkind I tend to read longer reviews after I’ve read the book, so I like having the option to have a sneak peek at their verdict by looking at the grade. I think it depends on the site. Grades aren’t essential but I do like them.
I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that the blogs/websites with grades are more popular because they provide a service, a la Epicurious.com. For me, a site like Epicurious — where all the recipes from Gourmet & Bon Appetit magazines are searchable and have been “graded” by the site’s users who have made the recipe — was the original reason the Internet was so great. If I need a strawberry shortcake recipe, I look for the top-rated recipes and pick one. The grade, if reliable, helps in that selection.
This system works best with something skill-based, like cooking. It works semi-adequately for tourism (I use TripAdvisor.com, for example, but I read other travelers’ comments with a pinch of salt leftover from Epicurious…), but it doesn’t work as well with books, where readers are so variable that you don’t know whether they give 5 stars to everything or if a 1-star review is just someone having a bad day. And that’s why sites like yours are so invaluable. Once you’ve found a reader/grader who’s intelligent and capable of making some distinctions based on some consistent criteria, it’s a massive help for people like me trying to find all the great books that she missed over the years.
Plus the people you encounter in the comments sections are so much fun!
Very true. I’ve discovered several new-to-me review blogs through people leaving comments.