The best way to review books is by having an uniform system in which to judge them. At Umbra Ex Libris we believe the normal one to five star ratings are too simplified. They work well for Amazon or Goodreads to get a more general sense on the item you are buying but the one to ten scale allows more wiggle room and a more focused rating. In five star reviews: one star means you hate it, two stars means you dislike it, three stars means it’s okay, four stars means you like it, and five stars means you loved it. However, the degree of hatred or love can vary. That is why here we decided to use a one through ten in our book rating system.
We use this rating system across all of our book reviews, no matter who authors the post. We also reference this same scale across all of our other reviews we do, such as food and travel. While this scale is obviously for book ratings you can basically replace books with, let’s say food. So for a 1/10 means we took a bite and put the plate down. Ratings are, of course, completely subjective, which means even if I were to give a book an eight, does not mean another reviewer here would give it an eight based off of this same scale. For example, I would give The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald a 4 out of ten. Roxy would say it is an eight. But enough chatter let’s get into the nitty and gritty of our scale.
The Rating System
- A one out of ten is a terrible book. What makes a book a one out of ten you may ask? This would be a book that we did not finish. For whatever reason, we put the book down early on and slammed our head against the wall a few times to remove the memory of ever picking it up. This can be caused due to boredom, bad writing, horrible plot, or just a hateable protagonist. While having one of these issues a book can be rated higher, (some hateable protagonists can be written in a great way) but the combination of more than one made us put the book down a few chapters in. I hope in our reviews there are not many books we have to rate a one
- A two out of ten is a poor book. It is still a book we did not finish. We made it halfway, maybe more into this book before we said nope to it and put it down. This can be caused due to a few scenes or chapters that just completely pull you out of the book. The writing style is still not great. The plot, while slightly better, still makes us question the believability of it. Instead of the wall, we use our hand to smack our head.
- Three out of ten is a bad book. Yay! We finished a book. A three means we struggled to get through this book. We did not have late night reading binges, we took many breaks before finally being able to finish this book. Something made this book drag on, but we did finish it. Our head stares blankly at a wall trying to understand what we just read.
- A four out of ten, below average. This is a book that is almost a decent read. It’s a book we will not recommend to someone. It might find a home on one of our many bookshelves but only if it was a gift or found at a yard sale for a low low price. We walked away from this book head held low, but held nonetheless.
- A five out of ten is just a book. Nothing in this book stands out. This story or characters are not memorable. By next week, we will have forgotten the names of the protagonist or the goals of the antagonist. We will tell people yeah I read that but i don’t really remember anything from it. It is neither good nor bad, just decent. Head remains unphased, unchanged.
- A six out of ten means the book was better than okay but not quite in that good mark yet. We liked a few things in this book. The author did something right in this book. We did not have to take long breaks between reading this book. This is the start of where we want books to be for our bookshelves. With a clear head, we are able to resume normal functions.
- A seven out of ten means it was a good book. A seven is where we would start recommending the book to someone. This was a well written book that we enjoyed from start to finish. This is a head more apt to engage in discussion.
- An eight out of ten is a great book. This is a book we will probably reread in the future. It was a well written book with characters that we loved. This book was a hard book to put down and definitely belongs on our bookshelf. These books are beginning to help repair any damage done to our head by the one or two ratings.
- A nine out of ten is a fantastic book. This book is another one we could not put down. We will recommend it to all of our friends and family. This book evoked strong emotions. We could relate with the character and their development. The message the author tried to get across came across loud and clear. These books fill our head with enough steam to pick up another within days or even hours.
- A ten out of ten is a masterpiece. This is a book everyone should read or a book everyone should own in their collection. This book might get many rereads because of how much we enjoyed it. In our library these books would be placed on a literal pedestal with the light from the heavens glowing on it. This book will not be soon forgotten in our memories. With tens, our heads risked explosion from pure enlightenment. Like one ratings, I do not think many books will be rated a ten, but when they are you know it will be worth the read.
In Conclusion
In this scale we also might give it half ratings. For example, a 2.5 out of 10, we finished reading a terrible book. This book we wanted to put down but something kept us reading until the end. Not good enough for a three but we did finish it. Same goes with a 9.5 out of ten. We loved this book but something was missing for that masterpiece status. I promise there will be no 4.25 or 6.73 or 7.46. The point of a rating system is to be simple and easy for everyone to use. We would encourage our readers to use this same rating system when talking about books.
For those who follow our Goodreads page, yes we know they use 5 stars and we rate our reads. We just divide our scale by 2. While not an accurate representation of this scale, it is good enough estimate of our ratings.
While we may not reread books rated three to six, books that we rate one or two might get a second attempt. Sometimes you are not in the mood to read a certain genre or a rough writing style. This can be a reason we do not finish a book and will one day go back to it in an attempt to rate it higher. However, some books are just terrible books and there is nothing we can do about that. On the other hand, books rated seven or higher tend to get a reread because we enjoyed them. Some of my favorite books I have reread many times. Ratings are always subjective though. We at Umbra Ex Libris would love to hear why you agree or disagree with our ratings, so please comment on our reviews about what you thought of the book.
I absolutely loved the breakdown of the rating system used here! Super easy to understand, and the humor about the condition these books left the physical well-being of your heads was fantastic. So proud of you guys for this website! So well done!
Much love!
Thank you! We hope the rating scale can be applicable to your own reads! If we ever review a book you’ve read, feel free to drop your own rating on it! Love ya!