Ceallaigh's 'Book Rating' system...
My rating system is odd & unconventional but I’ve found that it’s what works for me:
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ - A triumph of a story in all of its elements, a masterclass in beautiful writing (or whatever that means according to my personal taste), a work of solid philosophical or spiritual depth (i.e. usually this means it aligns with Indigenous, abolitionist, &/or anticapitalist worldviews), has one or more characters that I fell head-over-heels for &/or in whom I saw a lot of myself, &/or some combination of all of those things. Additionally a five-star book means it holds some element of personal resonance for me as well.
★ ★ ★ ★ .75 - Everything that the five-star books have except maybe it wasn’t particularly personally resonant, or it was maybe a bit too bleak? hard to read?, or I felt the ending was marginally unsatisfactory. Examples would be Debra Magpie Earling’s Lost Journals of Sacajewea which was beautiful but an extremely rough read, or Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits which was also beautiful & philosophically excellent but the ending fell a teensy bit short for me. This rating is essentially me telling you that you should absolutely read this book but I’m not going to shove it into your hands or anything…
To read my #five-star-reads Book Reviews, click here. - this includes the 4.75’s
★ ★ ★ ★ .5 - Enjoyable & quite well-written though perhaps not literary.
★ ★ ★ ★ .25 - Interesting & well-written.
★ ★ ★ ★ - I liked it with perhaps one caveat.
Anything between four and five is a book I would recommend (the quarter star differentiations are all merely a matter of personal organization of preference or resonance).
To read my #four-star-reads Book Reviews, click here.
★ ★ ★ .5 - It was fine, not a favorite, but I might recommend it…
★ ★ ★ - Meh. Usually this means I didn’t like it but I’m going to be nice about it.
To read my #three-star-reads Book Reviews, click here.
★ ★ - I didn’t like it & I’m going to tell you why. Usually this is either because I found something quite problematic about it or I felt it was “poorly written” for lack of a better phrase.
When I say a book is “poorly written,” that usually means either
a) a purely subjective assessment on my part and not to be taken as an educated critique of the author’s competency, experience, or choices—I’m just a biased reader, or
b) the writing or handling of certain subjects left too much room open for a problematic interpretation.
Also: if I suspect that the writing suffered from a lack of editorial oversight as opposed to authorial intent I will usually specify that this was likely my issue.
To read my #two-star-reads Book Reviews, click here.
★ - Horrible all around & I’m mad about it. A very rare occurrence, thankfully.
0 ★’s - Yule Island
I very rarely rate anything two-and-a-half or less unless I feel that it is problematic enough or some element of it is problematic enough that I feel the need to talk about it openly. I will also rate a book two stars (i.e. “quite problematic”) even if it had other elements to recommend it such as writing style or plot, etc.
In the same vein, & on occasion, if I feel a particular book is important in some way connected to its message, or the context of the book in its particular genre, political, or sociocultural relevance, I will give the book five stars even if it fell short in other areas such as writing style or plot, etc.
A book’s deeper philosophy is everything to me.
My rating scale & interpretation are constantly evolving too so all of this could change pretty frequently in which case I will update this page without notice. <3
⍋❅ ceallaigh