Goodreads Ratings

[ColGray]

I was listening to Publishing Rodeo last night and they were discussing Goodreads and how it's helpful to predict sales and trends. They briefly touched on ratings and kind of poo-poo'ed the ratings, so I took a look at my own history and LOL at the ratings.

Here's a selection of well known great books and their ratings on Goodreads as of 10/5/23 (format is book: rating)

1. Romeo & Juliet: 3.74
2. The Great Gatsby: 3.93
3. Fahrenheit 451: 3.97
4. Brave New World: 3.99
5. 1984: 4.19 rating
6. Make Way for Ducklings: 4.24
7. Goodnight Moon: 4.3
8. The Name of the Wind: 4.52
9. Collected Stories (Raymond Carver): 4.58
10. You Must Buy Your Wife at Least As Much Jewelry As You Buy Your Horse, and Other Poems and Observations, Humorous and Otherwise from the Life on the Range (by Dalton Wilcox): 4.89

That last one? It's a fake book by comedian Andy Daly's "self-proclaimed" poet laureate of the west, Dalton Wilcox, with over 250 reviews. The poems he's read from it includes ones about ****ing a hole in the ground (to be clear, that is his terminology), killing vampires, cyclops and murdering a theater "full of invisible mens") on comedy shows, podcasts (his own and Comedy Bang Bang) and on Conan/Tonight Show.

I thought it was pretty fascinating to see the ratings of classic works -- though I assume some of them are dragged down by high school students reading something in school!

 

[HareBrain]

though I assume some of them are dragged down by high school students reading something in school!

I wouldn't say they've been dragged down -- a 4 average is very good according to Goodreads's own ratings system, in which even a 2 is "OK" or "fine" or similar. (Or at least it was: I can't now find the key.) But the rating system as a whole has been degraded IMO by a lot of people who see anything less than 5 as in some way lacking (in the same way that they rate Uber drivers and AirBnB). It's rare for a popular Booktok book to get much less than 4.5.

 

[Lacedaemonian]

I think anywhere in the high threes is good and anything north of four is excellent. You also have to factor in the volume of votes and I guess the time of publication. That said, any online review system is going to be questionable.

 

[ColGray]

The idea of someone reading, Goodnight Moon, or Romeo & Juliet, and thinking, Sure, it was fine, but I have notes, is hilarious to me.

 

[ColGray]

I think anywhere in the high threes is good and anything north of four is excellent. You also have to factor in the volume of votes and I guess the time of publication. That said, any online review system is going to be questionable.

Yeah, anything 3.75-4.25 is a realistic ideal range -- good but doesn't feel fake (inflated or bombed).

 

[Lacedaemonian]

The idea of someone reading, Goodnight Moon, or Romeo & Juliet, and thinking, Sure, it was fine, but I have notes, is hilarious to me.

I think school bairns might have dragged this score down. R&J is not my favourite play by him so I might have marked it lower than you ... but by what metric?!? By no fathomable metric really.

 

[msstice]

Breakfast at Tiffany's gets a 3.33 which tells me these people have no taste. It should be a 5, as should The Great Gatsby.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I can now die happy because my first novel is more highly rated than 1984!

Although - probably a small detail - it does have over 4.3 million ratings more than mine...

 

[Biskit]

Here's a selection of well known great books and their ratings on Goodreads as of 10/5/23 (format is book: rating)

1. Romeo & Juliet: 3.74
2. The Great Gatsby: 3.93
3. Fahrenheit 451: 3.97
4. Brave New World: 3.99
5. 1984: 4.19 rating
6. Make Way for Ducklings: 4.24
7. Goodnight Moon: 4.3
8. The Name of the Wind: 4.52
9. Collected Stories (Raymond Carver): 4.58
10. You Must Buy Your Wife at Least As Much Jewelry As You Buy Your Horse, and Other Poems and Observations, Humorous and Otherwise from the Life on the Range (by Dalton Wilcox): 4.89

For me, your list highlights the limitations of the ratings, and also the limitations of the concept of "well known great books". I read down the list and found:
1: Heard of it, never read it, never been to a performance.
2: Heard of it, never read it.
3: Read it 40+ years ago in my teens.
4: Heard of it, don't think I've ever read it.
5: Heard of it, never read it. Not sure why. Possibly because we did Animal Farm when I was at school.
6: Never heard of it.
7: ditto
8: ditto
9: Never heard of the author
10: ditto

So, in a list of well-knowns, I have never heard of half of them, and have only read one of them.

 

[ColGray]

That's really interesting--and surprising (Except for #10, which is not a real book). How bout others?

I feel like 1-5 & 9 are common in US high school/college lit classes
6-7 are classic children's books
8 is perhaps the biggest debut fantasy novel in the last decade
10 is a fake book of cowboy poetry

Or maybe you've heard of the follow up to #10, You STILL Must Buy Your Wife at Least As Much Jewelry As You Buy Your Horse, and Other Poems and Observations, Humorous and Otherwise from A Life Still Being Lived on the Range (by Dalton Wilcox, Who Also Wrote the First Book But This Is a New Book)

(that is a joke question, but also the real title he used for the follow up)

 

[Venusian Broon]

I think ratings should always be discussed, or perhaps 'weighted', with the numbers of votes that generated the score.

For example, a 4.1 with a million votes is far more credible than a full 5 with 12 votes.

Mind you, I pay absolutely no attention to such ratings. Deciding to purchase books by arranging them by their cover colours in a nice rainbow hue, or via the third letter of their title alphabetically probably gives the same effect as relying on high star ratings. At least that's my experience.

 

[ColGray]

Generally, if I see a book has a high number of reviews and a high rating, i'll give it a try.

That said, I know there are some well loved authors I just don't gel with -- Iain M Banks being my prime example -- where the number of people telling me they're great/Read this book/5 Stars & a million reviews, is irrelevant.

 

[Biskit]

I feel like 1-5 & 9 are common in US high school/college lit classes

1 & 5 in UK lit classes, although things may have changed in the last 40+ years

6-7 are classic children's books

Perhaps less so in the UK. A quick google suggests they are available today, but perhaps not common when I was a kid.

8 is perhaps the biggest debut fantasy novel in the last decade

I had to look this up - I'm not really into heroic fantasy.

 

[ColGray]

1 & 5 in UK lit classes, although things may have changed in the last 40+ years

Perhaps less so in the UK. A quick google suggests they are available today, but perhaps not common when I was a kid.

I had to look this up - I'm not really into heroic fantasy.

Oh, good call on the children's books, yes. I hadn't thought about regionality with those in particular.

 

[msstice]

I wasted a few lunch minutes looking up good reads scores for some books I've read at some point and have an opinion on.

Three Men On A Boat 3.85
The Invisible Man 3.64
To say nothing of the dog 4.11
Moby Dick 3.54
The old man and the sea 3.8
The house of the seven gables 3.45
Rendezvous with Rama 4.12
Something Wicked This way Comes 3.92
Neuromancer 3.9
Quarantine 3.91
Permutation City 4.07
Diaspora 4.12
Things fall apart 3.73
Breakfast at Tiffany's 3.33
Snows of kilimonjaro 3.81
A farewell to arms 3.8
A streetcar named desire 3.98
Hyperion 4.26

I liked most of these books. The one I didn't like and DNFd has the second highest score and one I'm considering DNFing has the highest score.

 

[Vertigo]

I consider myself to be consistently inconsistent with my GR ratings (actually I apply the same ratings here). This is completely deliberate. Even within genre I think it can be completely impossible to compare books; So for example how can I compare 1984 with The Stars My Destination or Brave New World with Honor Harrington? So my star ratings can only be read as "in comparison with similar books." So, for example, two space opera books with the same rating will be, for me, of similar quality. Whereas a 3 star book by say Haruki Murakami and a 3 star book by David Weber simply cannot be realistically compared. So my ratings are moderately consistent across similar books and completely inconsistent across different classes of books. I'm deliberately avoiding the word genre there as it's not really a case of, say, literary versus SF.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I'm the same when it comes to rating books on Goodreads. Genre or fiction or non-fiction are irrelevant. I don't give a book less than a 3, which means I thought it was good enough and worth reading to the end. (I don't think it's fair to rate a book I didn't finish.) A 4 is a for a book I really enjoyed and a 5 is for a book I really enjoyed AND was sorry when I reached the end.

 

[ColGray]

I liked most of these books. The one I didn't like and DNFd has the second highest score and one I'm considering DNFing has the highest score.

Finally, someone else who might DNF Hyperion!

Despite numerous attempts, I've repeatedly bounced off Hyperion. It just doesn't click for me.

 

[ColGray]

I'm the same when it comes to rating books on Goodreads. Genre or fiction or non-fiction are irrelevant. I don't give a book less than a 3, which means I thought it was good enough and worth reading to the end. (I don't think it's fair to rate a book I didn't finish.) A 4 is a for a book I really enjoyed and a 5 is for a book I really enjoyed AND was sorry when I reached the end.

I think that's a really succinct way to capture how I rate books as well. It's quantifying, How did this make me feel, which is hard and messy and inconsistent, but also, yes, did i want more?, is the prime question.

I would even go so far as to say, My rating for a book that left me wanting more is probably higher than a book that left me stuffed. I generally like that sense of, But what about one more morsel...

 

[Abernovo]

So, in a list of well-knowns, I have never heard of half of them, and have only read one of them.

I've read the first five.
Number 6 I'd never heard of, but I suspect that's due to my childhood being outside the US, as has been discussed above. Number 7 I've heard of, but know nothing about it - such is the power of television, where it was referenced.

I know The Name of the Wind, but not read it, and I know the name of Raymond Carver, but never read his work. Yet, in both cases, perhaps.

Breakfast at Tiffany's gets a 3.33 which tells me these people have no taste. It should be a 5, as should The Great Gatsby.

I detest The Great Gatsby. I know the characters are not supposed to be likeable, but I developed a visceral dislike to all of them. So much so, that while I can acknowledge it is very well-written, I wouldn't ever want to read it again.

And, therein lies the issue with ratings. I can be as objective as I like, but it's impossible to be totally objective when judging art, in my own experience. It works for you, or it doesn't. That's fine, but it means that I trust ratings as much as I trust critics in the press. I'd rather go by the ratings or recommendations of individuals whose taste I know has some overlap with mine. In fact, there are some Chronners in whose recommendations I put a lot of weight. Others, I know have very different tastes to my own, and while I'll probably not run out and buy a book they rave about, I might note it for my friends who are into that sort of book.