No Longer Stingy with Stars

...or why everything might not need a rating.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood

The introduction of John Green’s book of essays, The Anthroprocene Reviewed might just be my favorite part of the entire book. Before reviewing a wide array of facets of our human-centered planet—from the Indianapolis 500 and Piggly Wiggly to the QWERTY keyboard and Sunsets—Green begins by poking at the concept of the five-star scale.

While today, in the age of the internet, ratings have become as ubiquitous as pop-up ads (did you get just get one asking you to subscribe to this newsletter?) and spam calls, they are a relatively recent construct. Green teaches us that the five-star scale wasn’t often “used to rate hotels until 1979, and it wasn’t widely used to rate books until Amazon introduced user reviews.” Yet, today we find the five-star scale applied not just to books or vacation stops, but to everything from public restrooms to chewing gum.

Publishing a book has tainted my view of the five-star system.

Prior to having my own contribution featured among the millions of others on GoodReads, I used to be stingy with my five stars ratings of books, only giving them out in rare occasions. Even books I really enjoyed I often gave four stars, as if there was a limit on the number of 5/5 ratings I could dole out in my lifetime.

But now, as both the giver and receiver of stars, it all seems a little silly. Does everything really need a rating?

At this moment I’m writing from my sunporch on a humid summer morning, my dog stretched out near my feet, the fog lifting over the fields in the distance, a female cardinal calling to me from a decades old maple in my backyard —but could I review it? Does it need a critic?

“Slow, quiet morning, but a little sticky on the porch. Sunrise not as a pink as I prefer. Coffee to cream ratio could have been better. Writing, even a simple newsletter, is always harder than I wish. 3 stars.”

My sons recently asked me and my husband to rank the best pizza we’ve ever had. As we ran through our memories, Tim reminded them that part of enjoyment is context.

The spicy pizza we warmed up after the Lumineers concert was a favorite because we were starving and glowing from singing and dancing with our favorite band. The pizza we ate straight out of the box on a picnic table in a city park after a fishing trip was delicious because we were all together. The pizza we used to enjoy on Sunday nights with my Grandpa Woody was delicious because it gave him such joy to buy it for us, to have us all around his table.

I took me a few months after my book came out to stop checking GoodReads daily. The kind reviews, those readers that really get the heart of my book and then take the time to write a note about it, make my heart swell. I feel seen and enormously grateful for the way the book’s characters, themes, and complexities are understood. The favorable reviews are a gift—and the dopamine hit of scrolling to find them can be alluring.

But a glimpse at a negative review can occupy my brain for hours. One two-star reviewer said she “needed a nonfiction book” about the topic of POWs in Michigan during World War II and “not a verse historical fiction.” A couple of one-star reviews (now removed after a few protective and no-nonsense readers came to my defense) accused me encouraging young girls to date adult men, based on the fact that they assumed Karl must have been in his 20s, rather than a teenaged soldier. (A reality that was more and more common as WWII raged on and younger and younger boys were pushed from the Hitler Youth onto the warfront. Some sources I read discussed entire German troops consisting of teenagers.)

Last week I was floating in my neighbor’s pool and reading a light-hearted summer romance. My son swimming nearby asked me what I thought of it, and I was a little snooty in my response about the quality of the literature. “Mom!” he chided, “someone worked really hard to write that book!”

I still like to track my books on GoodReads. I like to have record of what I’ve read, what I want to read, the ways the books I consume shape my years. And I still rate most of them—a bit more generously—but I also allow some to go unrated. It doesn’t always seem right to click on a rating scale after reading someone’s personal memoir. And how do I compare a tender and light-hearted middle grade novel to a behemoth, soon-to-be classic family tragedy?

How about you? What is your relationship to rating scales? Do you rate your books, your coffee, your morning writing session? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Always

Last week I had a new essay, about loss, memory, nostalgia, and hope, published on the Reformed Journal. If you missed it, I hope you’ll check it out.

As the calendar inches toward fall…

I am currently booking in-person and online events for September and beyond. I love visiting schools, groups, libraries, or even orchards to share about Enemies in the Orchard, its historical background, and my writing process. I love to do Q&As, and as a former middle school English teacher, I am intentional about keeping my presentations engaging and interactive, and am happy to lead hands-on writing exercises. Click here to learn more— and feel free to pass this link along to others who might be interested.

With gratitude and hopes for a few 5-star moments in your day,

Dana