3 Star Ratings: Positive or Negative?

     

     When I first got my account on Goodreads I was hesitant to give a book I thought was okay, but not very good, a 3-star rating because, at the time, I felt it was saying the book was worse than it actually was. Consequently, most of the ratings I gave the books I read were 4-stars, but I didn’t think many of the books I gave deserved that rating. Many times I wished it was possible to give a book a half star. 

      If you were to go onto amazon and view a product, towards the top of the review section there is often two reviews displayed, one the most helpful positive review and the other the most helpful negative review. Lately, I have noticed the “most helpful critical review” are often 3 star reviews so according to Amazon a 3-star rating is a negative rating. However, back when Netflix used to have a star rating system, if you were to place your cursor over the stars as you are rating a show, it would say the 3-star rating means “I liked it” and that doesn’t sound negative to me. Which I think begs the question if a product is given a 3-star rating is that a good thing or a bad thing?

   

     I thought about it and came to the conclusion that a book deserves 3-stars when it is just okay. There were some unpleasant elements to it, but that could have been worst, and there is some good content to go along with the bad, but this could have been better. I also think three star-ratings are probably the most honest reviews out there as the reviewer doesn’t have strong feelings swinging their opinion towards love or hate. 

Top 5 Rainy Day Reads

   
    

Note: Tope 5 Wednesday is a group on Goodreads. If you are interested in joining you can check it out here. 

      April is a rainy month especially in the North-East. Many basements do flood during this time. That’s why I enjoy colorful books to curl up with when the world outside (and sometimes inside) is a little bit grey. 

5.  The Ordinary Princess

     I remember how much I loved this book as a child. This is such a cute story about a princess, named Amy, who is different from her sisters because a gift/curse given to her by her fairy godmother at her christening. The main focus of the story is how Amy grows up with her gift/curse.

     Sometimes on a rainy day, I just need a little magic. Every Time I read The Ordinary Princess, it still has the same magic as when I first opened it up at ten years old

4. Bloody Jack

     When there is a torrential downpour outside, I can get cabin fever within a few hours. I could go outside and have my own adventures, but I would get soaked. The solution: let Jacky Faber go on the adventure for me, and I can read about them from the comfort of my own home. 

3. Kitchen Princess

      Comfort food and a heartwarming story, what more do I need? An orphan girl dreams of becoming a professional pastry chef and finding the boy who gave her a special spoon years ago. She arrives at a school where this can come true – she just needs to jump over personal and social hurdles first. 

2.  Angel Sister

     If I am feeling grumpy about the rain and flood warnings, I can just read about people who live in Kentucky in the middle of the summer, during a heat wave and The Great Depression. Despite the dire circumstances, the town of Rosy Corner is a colorful place with unique people as well as struggling family that just wants to be happy again. 

1. Paint the Wind

     I will admit, I am a horse girl. Ever since I was a young girl, I would spend hours pretending I was a cowgirl. I have read many books about people and their loyal steads, and Paint the Wind is most definitely one of my favorites. The story of the main character getting to know her new family and environment along with the search for a missing horse, is a breeze to follow. 

Top 5 Books to Read Before the End of the Year

     Many people told me I would have considerably less time to read once I started college. Much to my dismay, they were right. The amount of time I was able to read for enjoyment dropped much too low for my liking. Because of this, I found myself in need of prioritizing the books I want to read right away and the ones that can wait in line on my shelf a little longer.

     King’s Cage

      When I first saw the cover for War Storm, the final book in the Red Queen series, I was pumped to read it. My sister got me a copy for my birthday only adding to my excitement. There is one problem, however. To get to War Storm I need to finish King’s Cage first. I have no excuse for not yet finishing King’s Cage because I also own it, another present from my sister. The truth is I was too afraid to read it as I realized the book has the perspectives of other characters when the previous books only had one narrator. I began to fear character death, but I think my desire to finish the series has now overridden my horror of something bad happening to my babies. 

Siren’s Song

     Storm Siren is one of my favorite fantasy books. The world feels so fleshed out and the character’s so 3-dimensional. However, I’ve only finished the first three books in this trilogy. I also own all three books so I don’t exactly have any other excuse for not finishing it yet other than laziness. Do I have the energy to scan my eyes over a page? Apparently not. 

     

     The Mirror King

     I own this book since two Christmases ago. I enjoyed its predecessor. So why haven’t I read it? I think it’s too long, yet I have read books with hundreds of more pages than this one since I got it. I am a confusing creature. Part of it might be I find it much more exciting to start a brand-new series than finish an old one I have been working on. However, I don’t think anything can really beat the feeling of finishing a long-running book series for the first time. Which brings me to the next book on this list.

     

Viva Jacquelina

     This is number ten of a dozen books.  I faithfully read one Jacky Faber book a month since I started my senior year of high school. However, I broke the cycle when I started my first college semester. The problem is I still have a special place in my heart for Jacky Faber. I need to know if she will get what she’s been wishing for this entire time. I need to know how her story ends, and the last three books, including Viva Jacquelina, are relatively shorter when compared to the earlier ones. Also, they are all at my library so it's not like I don't have any access to them. 

     

       Witch and Wizard

     Because my book club is part of campus activities, we don’t exactly have meetings during summer vacation. However, we always vote on a book to work on during the summer so we have something to discuss when classes start up again. This year we decided on Witch and Wizard. My goal for finishing this book is much closer than the end of the year. I want to have this one done by the end of the summer. Otherwise, I will go to our first meeting in September and I will have to admit to not finishing the book, and I don’t think my pride will be able to handle that. 

The Importance of Book Covers

    The phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” is a cliché, and a rather old one at that. One of the oldest print recordings of the phrase is from the June 1867 issue of a newspaper called, Piqua Democrat. To sum up what was said the article stated not to judge a man by his appearance because he could have many skills underneath. Not so bad because it would be wrong for me to look at a stranger in the checkout line and decide everything there is to know about that person. However, books are not people. (Shocking, right?) A books cover is often the first thing someone notices while browsing through shelves at a library, bookstore, or a personal collection. Book covers matter and most people, myself included, do speculate about the content of the book by looking at the cover. The phrase, “don’t judge a book by a cover,” wouldn’t exist if this didn’t happen.

      A good book cover is good marketing. Publishing companies know the first thing a potential buyer notices about a book is the cover. Because of this they have developed ways to make covers that will attract their target audience. Hopefully if the cover is intriguing enough for someone to take it from the shelf he/she might read the synopsis, and maybe the first few pages. The goal is to eventually sell the book. Book covers are the bait used to lure readers in. However, it would be wrong for me to say it is all about marketing. Designing books covers is an art that involves capturing the feel of the words written inside. 

      For a cover to be successful it doesn’t exactly need to be attractive. I know of some very ugly covers that I don’t like to look at, but they do fit the story very well.  Red Queen by Victory Aveyard has an upside-down crown that is covered in blood. I like blood inside people’s body, where it belongs, not on a book cover. However, it is professionally done. The main character, Mare, is only pretending to be a noble lady as her life depends on it, but blood is a huge deal in the story. A person’s blood not only determines who is related to whom, but a person’s class and his/her ability. Although I don’t like looking at a book cover that is dripping blood, that isn’t to say it doesn’t play into the themes of the story.     

      Sometimes a cover can be absolutely beautiful, but make zero sense. The first edition cover for Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi was  gorgeous. It shows the main character in a fancy white dress standing against a shattered wall. It isn’t displeasing to the eye, but it doesn’t represent the book well. At no point does this girl has the opportunity to wear such a dress. The new covers, while some people think they still don’t make much sense, I think they fit better and it is a good change. The eye on the cover is the main character’s eye. It’s like her window to the world. Although this cover is a little eerie looking, I think it fits much better. 

       A good book cover is one that fits the book and gives the reader a hint of what lies ahead. The cover doesn’t need to be pretty, but it should be professional. If a book cover is amateurish then it is easy to brush it off as an armature story. That is why the most common advice I hear for people looking to self-publish is to hire a professional graphic designer to make the cover of the book. This is also important because a professional is likely to know some tricks that make a cover work. Such as what colors, shapes, and positioning of objects will invoke certain emotions in the viewer. A designer ,also, needs to consider how a cover will look when scaled down because a person looking for a book online will only see a small thumbnail image of the cover. 

     Does this mean it is okay to "Judge a book by its cover"? Of course not! Although a taste of the story inside is presented in the cover, a good cover is still only a window to what a reader will find once he/she opens it up. I know it’s been said a picture is worth a thousand words, but no cover image is going to reveal exactly what was written inside. The best way to know what stories and worlds a book holds is to read it. 

Sources:

https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/2015/09/30/4-ways-hack-book-cover-design-science/

https://www.draft2digital.com/blog/the-psychology-of-a-good-book-cover/

http://writerunboxed.com/2017/09/17/the-psychology-behind-good-book-cover-design/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hek_bJARjEg

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-in-world/201208/judging-book-its-cover

https://tcnjjournal.pages.tcnj.edu/2013/03/24/why-you-bought-that-book-the-psychology-behind-book-hunting/

https://www.knowyourphrase.com/you-cant-judge-a-book-by-its-cover

Top 5 Books I Devoured

*Note* Top 5 Wednesday is a Goodreads group where blogger/vloggers post about a bookish topic every Wednesday. You can check it out here. https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/118368-top-5-wednesday
     This is a fun topic because I can rank these books in order of how quickly I finished them. However, I must admit, when I was reading many of the books on this list, the biggest lie I told myself was “one more chapter.” In my defense, once I got to the last chapter of each book I was honest when I told myself “One more chapter.” That is until I ran to my library to borrow the sequel if it existed. 

                                                             5.    Chosen by Ted Decker 

     In book club, it seems for every book we read there is one person who finishes it way faster than everyone else. Almost everyone got through  Chosen relatively quickly, but I was well ahead, and literally finished it in half the time as everyone else. It took everything I had not to spoil what I had read during our meetings. It actually took me about a week to get through this and although that isn’t the quickest I have read a book, this is the fastest I was able to get through a book since I began  college. 

3.    The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

     It actually took me two days to finish this one which again, I have finished books in much less time. However, given the size of this one I have to say, I impressed myself. I was sick during the summer and I didn’t have anything better to do so I just kept reading and reading until the story was over, and then I went into the appendix. I remember my sisters face when I told her I finished Return of the King. She thought I was joking until I started telling her what happened in exact detail.   

1.    The False Prince by Jennifer Neilson

     I don’t remember how long it took me to finish this one, but I recall carrying it with me wherever I went. I also stayed up reading this book by flashlight until eleven pm. (Which was a huge act of rebellion for fifteen-year-old me) The moment I woke up I started reading this book until I finished it, and after that was achieved I begged my mother to let me take the car out so that I could go to the library and borrow the next book in the trilogy. 

1.    Cinder by Marissa Meyer

     The day before I read this book I had gone on a hike, which was very difficult and the trail was about eight hours long. It was a beautiful hike and I had a great time, but the next day my legs were very sore and stiff. I couldn’t go anywhere without my gate resembling that of a penguin. To pass the time, and to keep my mind off the AGONYof my legs, I raided my sister’s most recent library haul and found Cinder. The cover looked cool so I read it. I started reading around seven in the morning and I was done around supper time. This was the first time I have read a novel of that size in one day. I have no clue how I managed though. I tried to get through Cinder just as quickly last summer, but I couldn’t do it. 

1.    A Lady at Willowgrove Hall by Sarah E. Ladd 

     I have the ability to read in a moving car without getting motion sickness. I’m not sure how, but some of my friends have treated this like some kind of superpower. I’m sure there are lots of other people out there who can do this to. Anyway, I finished this book during the course of a nine-hour car trip, not counting stops for food and bathroom breaks. Would I have finished this book quickly if I didn’t have to sit in the same spot for most of the day? Absolutely, but I wouldn’t have don’t so in one sitting because if I were home I couldn’t just read all day. There’s these things called chores and Homework that often get in the way of reading. *sigh*