Personal Philosophy

How Many Stars? My Book Review Criteria.

Stars vary based on the reviewer’s interests, reading history & life experience. Sample/Fiction: The Heart Doctor by Dupont & Johnson.

The problem

I had purchased numerous books for my Kindle and written reviews before I came up with standards for the stars. Like everything else, there was a learning curve.

The first thing asked for when entering the review is a rating by number of stars - one is awful and five is wonderful, highly recommended. How do you assign them on a consistent basis, unrelated to the genre or classification?

How do you decide on stars?

Star criteria
I had to come up with some standards. As it turns out, fiction and non-fiction standards are different. Since I read mostly fiction, here are my standards. Non-fiction will be in another article.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Wonderful. I will most likely reread it.

The book is exactly what I expected, whether romance or science fiction. First, the story has to be believable and exciting, given the setting.