Fact: I don't like coffee. I just like saying Coffee Clutch in my best and deepest New York accent. Considering I'm a New Yorker, I'm pretty freaking good at it. So I've got my tea and I hope you have your heated beverage of choice, because it's time to gab the day away.
In my opinion, ratings is one of those hidden, secret obstacles you don't realize is going to stress you out when you start blogging/decide to start blogging but then you write your first review and ENTER THE KEYBOARD SLAMMING AND CUSSING (you heard me - CUSSING).
How do I know this? Well in addition to having more than one serious conversation with blogger friends about ratings, I also went back and forth on this when I first started blogging. At first I was like: YEAH RATINGS OBVSIES. But then I was like: but my books don't all rate on the same scale. Seriously. Try putting The Mediator Series and The Fault in Our Stars on the same, 5-star scale. If you can do it, you have my utmost respect.
But I bet, if you've read a review on my blog, you're mentally asking me: GABY, YOU HAVE RATINGS ON YOUR BLOG. WHAT THE WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW?
Well, I was conferring with my friend who is currently majoring in business (he's a smart kid. Really smart. HI JOEL) and he was all: "Gaby, if you wanna be critical and be taken seriously, you've got to have RATINGS."
And, REALLY, who doesn't want to be critical and taken seriously?
So if this crisis happened nearly 7 months ago, why am I talking about it now?
Well, in the last couple weeks I've been having issues rating books. I THINK this is because I've become more comfortable with my voice on my blog. It's also possible I no longer care about being critical or taken seriously. I just want to have fun, read some books and hang out with my blogger friends. I ALSO think that sometimes people just look at the ratings and leave before reading the words and, while that's a totally legit life choice, I feel like it misrepresents my opinion. Which I definitely don't want.
ALL OF THIS BEING SAID: I get the other side of it. Clearly. Because I had ratings on my blog for the last 6 months. But I also see reasoning for NOT having them - or for not having a numerical, star system. So I'm picking a happy medium (I think). I'm gonna keep my little sum up at the end of my reviews, which I feel like are good for readers who want the quick and dirty and swap out the stars for adjectives. Or emotional short sentences. Because I'm a flail-y, emotional kind of girl. And, well, like, Goodreads will just have to be a gut reaction star thing, I guess (stupid Goodreads).
So did I use this post as a sounding board to figure out my personal blog issues? Yeah. Did it help you guys too? I hope so. Either way, be sure to let me know what system YOU use to rate books. Just don't tempt me to change my mind again, okay?
