I struggle with this a bit. Even if the book is 3.98 stars, i view that as not passing lowest bar. I consider most 4 stars books to not be there time, but rather the number of stars is how i filter out bad books
Also, how do you use your stars? Do you change your rating often?
For me, it generally goes like this:
- 1 Star -Either its so bad that its offense or i dnf it
- 2 Stars - Either bad or mediocre, not really work any time
- 3 Stars - An okay book with a couple of redeeming points
- 4 Stars - A great book with some flaws that bother me
- 5 Stars - An excellent book, i am jumping in my sits.
4 stars is too high a bar. There are plenty of books that receive 4.5 stars that I rate as 3, and occasionally 2. Of course there is a correlation, but it's weak. A lot of the old Reddit darlings (probably now also Lemmy darlings) are a bit meh for me, and so conversely, a lot of less popular books are good for me.
I think I wouldn't go below 3 stars on rating sites like Goodreads/storygraph. That's where the correlation seems to make it make sense. The current book i haven't read for several days because it sucks is rated 3.6...