Bookish Discussion: Do you put a rating at the end of your review?

This question has been an on going discussion ever since I started book blogging, probably even before. Book bloggers discuss this constantly, but in the end it’s your own opinion.

I rated the books from the beginning. My rating goes from 1 to 5, I also give half points and an extra if I really loved the book. I explain my rating in my review policy and of course also through my review. Every book blogger has a different system, so I once wrote a post on how I rate a book, you can read it here: How I Rate The Books I Read

I’m still happy with my rating system, it helps me with my review and I think it gives my readers, authors and publishers an opinion in one view. To find out specific thoughts people have the review to read. We all have different tastes and to help an author get the sales they need good reviews, that’s why I like giving a rating. If you find a new book on goodreads or amazon you can see the average writing. Reading the reviews after that always helps me decide, if I actually want to read the book. The eye goes to the rating first of course. I understand bloggers, who don’t give out any ratings and explain everything with their words, but sometimes people just don’t have time to read the whole review.

In the end it’s your own decision and you have to be comfortable with it. An author usually appreciates an honest opinion and if you can explain your rating, it’s fine. Of course there are some ratings out there, without any explanations or sometimes with some lame reasons for giving just 1 star. However, most of the time these are not book bloggers, because we actually take the time to read the book and offer our honest opinion. There are many different ways of sharing your opinion.

Having half points in my rating makes goodreads and amazon a bit of a challenge, because they only have full ratings. I always round down, even though I now that mathematically it’s not correct. My opinion about this is: I give five stars to books I adore and love. 4.5* books were also great, but maybe something small was missing, so I think they don’t deserve the same rating as a 5* book. To make clear that it’s not a 4* either I add the actual rating in my review. A book might be nearly perfect, but just not enough to give it 5 stars, but I don’t want to give 4 stars, so it’s the half. There is the fact that it was not perfect for me though, so rounding up doesn’t make sense to me. I’m aware that most bloggers round up and I understand why. In my opinion there is no right or wrong when it comes to this. You have to be consistent and make sure you explain what you mean by your rating.

How do you rate the books you read?!