CXLLUM
I've Been Lying to Goodreads (and Myself)
Welcome back, nobody!
Today I want to talk about something I've been quietly embarrassed about for years: my Goodreads rating system, or more accurately, the complete lack of one.
Here's the thing. Every time I finished a book and had to rate it, I'd freeze. What if the author sees it? What if they Google their own name at 2am, stumble across my profile, and feel genuinely hurt because some random guy from Scotland gave them three stars? I couldn't handle that responsibility. So I just... didn't. I developed a very cowardly workaround:
- 3 stars — meh, didn't love it
- 4 stars — pretty good actually
- 5 stars — obsessed, read it twice, told everyone I know
No book ever got a 1 or 2 star rating. Ever. Not because every book I read was good, but because I am, apparently, emotionally unprepared to critique art on the internet.
The problem is, now that I've built out a reading section on my own site, all those ratings are staring back at me. Every book sitting at 4 or 5 stars. It looks less like a reading list and more like a participation trophy cabinet. It feels weird and kind of dishonest to anyone reading it, and honestly to myself.
So I'm fixing it. New rules, effective immediately:
- 0 stars — DNF'd (did not finish — we don't talk about it)
- 1 star — read it, did not enjoy it
- 3 stars — read it, liked it
- 5 stars — read it, absolutely obsessed with it
Will I go back and update old ratings? Maybe. Some of them definitely don't deserve what I gave them, and some probably do. We'll see.
The main thing is: going forward, if something shows up on my site with a 1-star rating, that means something. And if it's got 5 stars, you should probably go read it immediately.