About the Rating System

What are the Stars?

Books may be rated 1-5 stars. 1 star being the lowest possible rating and 5 stars being the highest. Books that have not been read do not have a rating.

Every book review may have an overall rating, a performance rating, and a story rating. The overall rating takes into account both the story and performance. The Performance rates the narrator, if the book was reviewed as an audible book. The story rating is for the book overall.

Books are not graded by spelling or grammatical errors, although poor performance or books that are hard to read may factor in layout. If something stands out, this will generally be mentioned in the review.

Products only have an overall score. Additional ratings may be added later for product and business reviews.

The Starts look like this:

Overall

Performance

Story

How are Books Rated and What do the stars mean?

One Star

One star is the lowest possible rating. If the story received a one star rating, the book was probably poorly written, not relative to this reader's personal tastes, or perhaps the narrator ruined the story.

If the performance received one star, the story may still have received a higher rating. The performance rates the narrator.

Two Stars

A two star rating means the book was hard to read, but may have had some interesting content. Overall the story was not relative to this reader's personal tastes.

The performance rates the narrator.

Three Stars

A three star rating means the book was okay, but not memorable. It may be a good book, but it may be very similar to other books the author commonly writes.

The performance rates the narrator.

Four Stars

Four stars means the reviewer enjoyed the book. It may not have stood out in it's genre or relative to other books by the author. Four stars means the book was well written, easy to read or listen to, and overall an enjoyable performance.

The performance rates the narrator.

Five Stars

Five stars means the book was memorable, an easy read, and definitely relative to the reviewer's personal tastes. These books usually also receive a Best of Books Award.

The performance rates the narrator.

What are the Awards?

Best of Books Award

Best of Books Awards are given to 5 star books that are well written, easy to read, and enjoyable. A five star rating does not automatically mean the book will receive the award. The award is reserved for memorable titles.

 

Best of Authors Award

The Best of Authors Awards are given to authors who consistently write books that are enjoyable, memorable, and well-written.

 

Best of Narrators Award

The Best of Narrators Awards are given to narrators who offer engaging performances while reading books. Narrators are not graded on the story of the book, but how well they perform the story and character. A great narrator does not take away from the overall tone of the book, but offers insight into the character's personality in a way that readers may not receive if they read the books themselves.

The narrator may cause a negative impact on the story by:

• Reading in a monotone voice, inflection is important
• Attempting to perform a drunken character in a manner that is not understandable
• Men who have deep voices, but attempt to perform female characters in a lisp
• Adding additional words to the story that do not exist: uhm, like, hmmm, pow
• Long overdrawn pauses
• Variations in volume
• Whistling through teeth while talking
• Talking too loudly or quietly
• Yelling the story
• Poorly faked accents
• Using a nasal or high pitched voice (on purpose)
• Randomly changing narrators for characters or books in a series