Hello!!! It’s Friday and I hope I’m somewhere in Barcelona right now, maybe eating Ramen and preparing to go and watch Deadpool or something :D, but today I wanted to talk to you guys about something that kind of bugged me a few weeks ago and I wanted to hear your opinion on the matter.
As soon as a book is announced on GoodReads, a rating appears. People comment on it and rate it, sometimes based on their excitement, or because they liked the blurb or the title. Sometimes because they didn’t, which was the case that brought this to my attention. But my point is:
Some people defend that GoodReads allows people to rate based on their excitement level for any given book, but do they? I was checking their Review Guidelines, and they do allow rating prior to the book release, but not for excitement purposes:
Pre-publication reviews. Many of our members receive advance copies of books to review, either through Goodreads giveaways or another source. We have no way of knowing the exact date that review copies are available. As such, each book is eligible to be reviewed as soon as it appears on the site.
I for one am of the opinion that you can comment all you like on a book, but rating should be reserved for after you read said book.
A while back I posted a comment by Patrick Rothfuss to his 5 stars reviews for a book that doesn’t even has a publication date yet, and I’ll leave that comment here again:
I understand being excited for a book, or underwhelmed by its theme or synopsis, but is it ever OK to grade something that you haven’t read?
My Tiny Obsessions 
You already know my opinion on this one. I can’t understand why people rate books without reading it. I understand that they might be excited or they don’t like the blurb or the author but you don’t have to rate the book because of that. I understand if people comment on that book but rating?? How can someone rate a book without even read it?
i don’t understand either :(, it’s like judging a book by its cover, but making sure that your opinion counts… =/
Yeah… It’s not right to do something like that
😦
I don’t either. I really don’t get the rating before reading no matter how exited you are about the book. I would express my excitement through text and gifs.
agree! I don’t get it. but it happens so much. what’s up with people?
YES! I have been seeing people doing that a lot lately. Especially on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. (Or at least that’s the one I have been seeing most.)
i’m assuming people are rating it 5*s all around? yeah, with the new Jennifer Niven book is the other way around. 1*s ratings rained down on it 😦
Yes, I have only been seeing 5* rating for it. Wow…that’s worse! 😦 I seriously don’t understand why people are doing that.
I can’t even wrap my head around it ! HOW ? I have been thinking a lot about this lately especially since “Harry Potter and the cursed child” has been announced and I can’t understand the logic behind it because YOU PEOPLE HAVEN’T READ IT YET, CHIIIILL !! But then again maybe time travel really does exist , yes? No? K.
lol, wouldn’t it be kind of awesome if time travel did exist though? but i don’t think so. people react to things like a book announcement, and that’s totally awesome, what isn’t awesome is rating a work that you haven’t even seen yet =/
Yeaah exactly ! I do it too when I get excited, I comment or something but I never rate
i don’t really understand why someone would do it… =/
A strong no from me. I hate it when people say they pre rate it because they know it’ll be good. I mean, they can’t be totally sure…
you can never be sure until you actually read it. right? no matter how much you love or hate the writer and the premise of the book.
Great post!
I personally don’t rate a book unless I read it. And sometimes, I don’t even rate books that I didn’t reach at ;least 50% in. If in case I DNF I book and haven’t read a huge chunk of it, I prefer not to give it any ratings because I feel it would be unfair for the book. I would write a review of the parts that I have read, but no ratings I guess. But that’s just me.
i agree with not rating a dnf if the reason for DNFing was lack of connection to said book. if the problem lies in the writing, characters, story, etc, I’m ok with rating it.
It’s so frustrating to see ratings and then when you go to the comments and it’s how excited someone is or whatever. Now I don’t even look at the ratings anymore; I just skip all the reviews that don’t mean anything and look at the comments that talk about the actual book!
it’s so frustrating. I do trust ratings for books that have enough written (real) reviews though
I hate when people do this. Especially when they negatively review a book before release. How dare you judge something that isn’t even done yet?! You’re already giving it such a bad reputation and its probably still being revised. I feel like you can’t judge a book unless you’ve read it, completely. If you DNF, you shouldn’t place a rating because you didn’t experience the entire thing. That’s why even if I want to, I don’t leave a book unfinished. I want to be able to complain to the full extent of my abilities haha
it really bugged me to see all the negative 1* ratings to the new Jennifer Niven book, and heck, I haven’t even read anything by her, but the freaking book is not out, how can you be judging it, you know? I agree with DNFs ratings in same cases, but you’re totally right
That’s the book I was thinking about. So many people threw a fuss over it and it doesn’t have a cover, like come on? How rude is that to an author?
and they’re mostly judging the book on its blurb, that I honestly didn’t see anything wrong with, and that most times it’s written by someone other than the author 😦
Yeah I agree with you, I’m on the “no” side. Maybe they should have another rating system for prerelease ratings. And then when the book comes out, it goes back to normal rating.
I’m sure authors aren’t complaining when they see the 5 star reviews.
Also Patrick’s post is really funny. Time travelers must exist.
that wouldn’t work, because that’s the goal of arcs: create the buzz around the book, so the ratings should be there prior to its release. I think it falls on us as users and readers to not abuse the rating system, you know?
yeah. it sucks regardless
Great topic! I have to say, I like people expressing their excitment for a book with gifs and craziness in Goodreads comments. BUT when a book is rated almost 5 stars, while it’s not even out yet, well, that kind of annoys me, I’d rather for the ratings to be only valid when the book is out. That way, we’re sure all the ratings are from people who actually read the book, I don’t know, ahah.
the problem with that it’s the ARCs. they exist for a reason, and if I read a book prior to its release, I should be able to rate it… heck, I read it, you know? I think it’s on us, as readers, bloggers and GR users to not abuse the rating system.
Oh yes you’re right, I didn’t think about that when writing my comment. It’s really on us to do the right thing, but I guess we won’t be able to stop people from rating 5-stars a book that’s not out ’til 2020 or something, just because it’s from a certain author. That’s too bad 😦
yeah 😦 it is. people should be more conscious of their actions. 😦 it’s like rating a movie you haven’t even seen… it’s just wrong
Exactly! But well, I guess we can’t stop them 😦
no 😦
No! Ratings are for after a book has been read. Whether the ratings are positive or negative it doesn’t feel right to me.
totally agree. if you read it, you can rate it. if you haven’t, stay away from the stars 😉
I say “NO” as well! I get that you are excited and you can certainly leave a gif-filled comment because of it, but people should NEVER rate something they haven’t read yet.
it annoys me so much. why do people even think that it’s ok to do that?
I have no idea!! On what basis do they rate it even? It’s just ridiculous.
there’s mostly 2 ratings when this happens: 5 stars or 1 star, lol. people are weird sometimes. I would like to read a comment on someone that actually does this, so I can try to wrap my head around it
That would be interesting!
right? I talked to a girl on twitter a few weeks back that defended it, saying that if goodreads allowed it, people had the right to do it =/
But as you clearly stated it, that’s not why Goodreads allows it …
yep. i actually went to google the policy, to see where they said something about the excitement rating, and that’s not at all what I found. I like that we can rate prior to publication, because that’s one of the goals of getting and reading arcs, but if you haven’t read it, why would you feel you have the right to judge it?
I can only agree with that!
NO! I find it really strange that people do that. I’m as surprised as the next person about the Cursed Child book, but you don’t see me rating it a five star book. It can discredit the book as well as people may just think a book is popular because there is hype and not because it is genuinely good.
totally agree 🙂
I have seen this happen quite a lot and I seriously do not get it. It makes no sense to me! Oh and I went to the library and picked up Anna and the French Kiss 😀
hurray for Anna and the French Kiss 😀 😀 :D, I’m starting book 2 today ;). and yes, I don’t get it and it makes me so sad 😦
WOOO! Tell me how that one is as well haha. Oh and I totally agree.
Will do
Thanks 🙂
Heck no! That’s so misleading. How can you know how you’re going to feel about a book before you read it? I don’t like it when people do it.
i don’t like it either :(, i don’t really know how people think that it is ok…
I think you should read the book and see if you like the actual characters,plot, setting etc. Don’t just base it off a “beautiful cover” or creative title. I personally rate books AFTER I finish reading the whole thing.
😉 yep, that’s what i think everyone should do
Me too!
Rating books before you read them just doesn’t make any sense! I totally get that you may be excited for a book or the author, but that doesn’t mean that you should be hyping/dismissing a book before you have even read it. I have seen this a lot for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (which I’m also excited for because HP duh!) and it is kind of frustrating and bugging me every time I go on goodreads.
yep… and what’s the point? rating something you haven’t even read? i don’t get it…
I rate books after I read them. The only thing I made out of excitment was once and it was a comment, no rating so it didn’t affect in anyway. I agree with all that you said.
commenting I think it’s super fine. when you add a book to your tbr you’re already showing interest, you can comment and talk about it. but rating? why?
I definitely don’t know
I never rate books before reading. It’s ok to write about how much you are excited for the book but rating must be done after you finished reading the it. 😀
agree!
Comments about your excitement is great… ratings not. Rate what you’ve read.
totally agree 🙂
Rating a book before reading it sounds crazy! It’s also a little misleading in a way, especially for those that base their decision to pick up a book based on the ratings.
yes, it is =/. I don’t know why people think it’s ok to do it.
I can’t rate before reading a book…no matter how good people say it is! You’re making me jealous, I want to eat Ramen too! 🙂
😀 I ate Ramen yesterday, but it’s so rare.. ;). i can’t take people’s word to rate a book either, but I somehow think it’s worst if the book is not even out yet
Aww! You’re making me even more jealous with the Ramen! I completely agree with you, I have to read the book for myself, before I can judge things!
😉
The whole thing doesn’t make sense to me. Why would you rate a book before you read it? That’s like telling a chef you love their food before you have even tried it! Then, if you don’t like it, you can’t tell them. Grah, this bugs me! I have never rated a book before reading it. No way! This was a great post.
I honestly don’t understand the logic behind it either. but books that won’t even be out for another half a year or more, that aren’t even ready for ARC stage, and they already have ratings… it bugs me
I think people who rate books before reading them are ridiculous, especially those who give low-ratings for no reason. They take “judging a book by its cover” to a whole new level. Like are you just hating on the author because I thought we were rating books, not author personalities LOL.
yep. yes! ridiculous indeed. I don’t understand the logic behind it. if you don’t like the author, why are you checking out the book?
Rating a book before reading it has never made sense to me- even if you’ve read the synopsis, you don’t know how the story will be executed, and there’s so much the synopsis doesn’t say.
yes. and let’s not even mention how misleading some blurbs are…
This is a big pet peeve of mine. It really makes me think the rater is a childish twit. It’s fine to make a comments about excitement or expectation, or even disapproval but you shouldn’t star rate things you haven’t at least tried to read. I completely understand rating something that’s a DNF, so technically you haven’t completed it but if it’s so bad you can’t finish that’s a legit rating. Star rating something on speculation is obnoxious and arrogant.
i totally agree, 100%. and I agree with the DNF bit too.
I love that comment of Patrick Rothfuss haha. I don’t rate books before I’ve read them and I don’t understand people who do. Even if the blurb sounds awful, that doesn’t mean the book is? The author doesn’t even write the blurb themselves, so it could be completely wrong.
yep, that gets on my nerves. I mean, if you don’t like the blurb, you have an easy solution: skip the book. and yes, most blurbs are not very good representations of the books themselves.