The Great Rating Crisis of 2016: A Personal Journey of Self-Discovery and Growth

As I reflect on my reading experience, I realize that I have been struggling with biases that affect my ratings. Like I'm not loving it to the potential that I could just because of who I am as a reader, I just can't help but get angry with myself for having these biases constantly every time I read and letting it affect what I think a book actually deserves. This is a problem with me as a reader, not so much as a rater, but still. I feel like they're so connected with the things that we prefer in a book and how it affects our readings.

I think it's a problem with me as a reader because I've been letting my biases influence my ratings. I've learned to accept that individuality is a core thing, which I wanted to emulate with my ratings. There have definitely been less instances where I am compelled to give a book for example a higher rating because I think other people will enjoy it and it was my reading preferences that sort of made me take away stars. I'm really pleased about this, though. It's actually helped me to feel as if my reviews are being more genuine and critical. Because I'm not like pleading to the audience; I'm being honest and open about how I personally feel about it, even if other people 100% have the opportunity to feel differently.

Reading biases are something that every single reader possesses. We all have certain tropes that we dislike or we have certain themes that we feel strongly about and our rating really depends on how that is represented throughout the novel. Everyone has them, and there's no reason for me to feel guilty about that and for having that play into my ratings because my personal preferences are a huge part of it. I think it's actually helped me to be more honest with myself and others.

Currently, my reviews are about me; my reading taste; my reading preferences. And that's the way it should be. I really want to work on getting rid and breaking down all of those reading-related grudges that they feel are totally preventing me from reaching the potential that I could. Like, I just feel that if I was more open-minded and wouldn't let these preconceived biases really determine a book from the start for me that it would help me rate books more honestly and let me give a more accurate representation of what it's worth to me.

I feel a little conflicted on this statement because I agree with it, but not necessarily for those reasons at the time of filming this. I definitely had way more reading biases than I do currently. For example, with multiple perspectives; I love books with multiple perspectives now. I used to have an aversion to high fantasy; I love high fantasy now. Same with adult books. By bringing down certain reading by-says, I've allowed myself to enjoy more types of books and that's a great thing.

However, I don't necessarily think that breaking them down is like super beneficial when it comes to reading books because those biases and preferences are so crucial to your individual reading experience. And they're things that should be included in the books. It's not a bad thing to dislike a certain genre or to not enjoy reading about a certain subject, and have that be reflected in your review because people are reading them to get your personal experience, not the experience of somebody else who doesn't have those preferences.

So, I am very happy that over these last two years, I have become a more open-minded reader. And I don't like my past experiences with certain things necessarily prevent me from enjoying a book which I think is really really great. So, that concludes my Great Rating Crisis of 2016. The rest of the video is literally like a full minute and a half of me just asking for prompts of things you can write at the comments.

Overall, after watching this video again two years later, I am like so much happier with my reading and reviewing style. And I couldn't be more pleased about that as a non-interviewer, I think I'll always feel compelled to perfect my rating scale and to improve my reading and reviewing skills which is a great thing. I think that's something that every online reviewer should have.

I've definitely given myself a little bit of leniency; I have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to the different levels within one rating, and being more accepting of my own personal reading experience as opposed to needing to be like strict and consistent and comparing myself to others and books to other books all the time. I had a really great time watching this video, and noticing my own improvements because I feel really positive about it now.

But definitely let me know in the comments below how did you feel about my Great Rating Crisis of 2016, and I guess this could be considered my somewhat less intense Great Reading Crisis of 2018 if you have any strong feelings on certain things about your personal reading scale or online review culture, in general, I'd love to hear them.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's up hello my name is Emma and today I'm basically going to be reacting to a video I mean two years ago back in the winter of 2016 I uploaded a video titled the great rating crisis of 2016 where I basically talked about a lot of my confusion in writing books a lot of the internal conflict I was going through regarding my rating scale and basically it was just me like over analyzing my five-star rating skill for about nine minutes I do consider this to be probably one of my favorite videos I've ever posted just because I feel it is very introspective it's very thought-provoking and I'm really proud of the way that I presented my thoughts on this subject but of course it's been two years and my views on reading skills have totally changed so I thought it'd be really interesting to go back watch this video and comment on it in the perspective that I have now so let's just dive right into fetus Emma video okay what's a pillow my name is Emma and today I'm doing a somewhat random video so in 2016 I really that I really wanted to be more critical when it came to reading and reviewing books entitled I feel like I can just breathe it everything five stars and I really did enjoy the majority the books I read last year but looking back on it I just feel like I didn't do as good of a job as I could have while judging them so I really wanted to make a video just doing some self-reflection bringing up some of the questions and concerns I have and hopefully through discussing this topic with you guys I can make some of the changes that I'd like to to my rating scale I do think that by making this video it was really helpful in determining what I really wanted to do with my reviewing style and rating scale so it would definitely accomplish what I was supposed to at the time I personally read my books on a five-star scale with like half points in between that seems gallantly associated with Goodreads because that's how they do their reading scale but I just feel like some other forms of reading are just way too broad and now that I've decided on this five star nine point scale I have to actually figure out what those different ratings mean the way I've always personally interpreted it was five stars means I really loved it four stars means I really really enjoyed it three stars means it was good it was okay two stars means that I was pretty underwhelmed and one star means that I really hate so I definitely think just off of that my rating scale and itself has totally changed four or five stars my rating is now that I absolutely loved it and I thought it was a masterpiece of a book for four stars I also really enjoyed my time reading it but I didn't think it was perfect for three stars it was somewhat enjoyable that it had significant flaws that impacted the story for me two stars is I was very underwhelmed and overall I didn't really enjoy my time reading it and one star is pretty much the same I hated it and I don't think it has any redeeming qualities for my half stars with 4.5 stars I use that to identify books that I loved as much as a 5 star read enjoyment wise but I don't feel it deserved 5 stars due to the construction of this story and with 3.5 stars I enjoyed the book as much as a 4 star book but certain flaws maybe hesitant to give it a higher rating as you can see with my half stars I tend to use the whole number above to represent my enjoyment and the whole number below to represents my feelings on the execution of the story it's two and a half stars and one and a half stars I do not use them frequently at all I don't think I've ever rated a book one of the half stars but it would probably follow the same format of the whole number above meaning my enjoyment and the whole number below meaning my feelings on how the story is independent of my enjoyment my problem is that I feel like on my personal rating scale my 4 star rating is super close to my 5 star rating or as my 3 star rating is super far away from my 2 star rating it's like the 4 star rating is super comparable it's the 5 star rating whereas 2 stars is a complete downgrade from 3 I feel that subconsciously I just think of like the distance between 3 and 2 being so different like on totally different scales even though each point is equidistant from each other so as you go down and start ratings they really should be kind of similar as to like 1 star above or one star below instead of it being really really great two really really bad really really fast I've just always struggled with keeping the star ratings equal from each other instead of having the top two be so negatively skewed and the bottom two be so positively skewed as an improvement I definitely feel like I've really evened out the distance between my star ratings I think that might be related to the fact that since filming this video I really tried to break free reading any book I just like overall enjoy five stars and I've allowed myself to get more comfortable with docking stars and half stars for how I feel about the novel critically and although I still rate the majority of my books between 4 and 5 stories because I genuinely enjoy everything I read I don't pick up anything if I don't think it's gonna be a four or five star read for me but I do have more four star beads in my like reading resume and even more three and three and a half stars as well and as those are still my more used rating I do feel like the distance between five and four stars is more even and a little bit further apart than it used to be and I think that's a really great thing so then we hit the point in my thought process where I'm like how does this book that I'm currently about to rate compared to other books that have that same rating for example I might just finish a book and absolutely love it I feel like it has no flaws and it deserves five stars absolutely but then I think well I gave Harry Potter five stars and I gave the Mortal Instruments five stars and I gave the Hunger Games five stars so is this book really a five star book I mean for me those are really extreme examples of five stars but I think you know what I'm trying to say so my answer that question is no my next thought is well does that mean that there's different levels under each number star rating and if so does that mean that my scale is actually invalid and that it's wrong to group these books together I still struggle with finding the line between having a consistent scale where I am comparing books to other books of the same rating and allowing myself to have different levels within that one rating when I do finish a book and I'm trying to decide on a rating I do still frequently ask myself well I gave this book however many years ago 4.5 stars so does this book that I just read still deserve 4.5 or is it more of a four and over the last two years I realized it's kind of impossible for every book to be given the same rating to actually be viewed equally especially because they used such a small scale when looking at my Goodreads statistics at the time of filming this video I've rated 232 books five stars over the past four years there is no way that 232 books can be viewed the same in my head some of those books are 5 stars because of the pure enjoyment that I felt while reading them and some of those books are 5 stars because I think the execution of the story was flawless if I didn't enjoy it exactly as much as another book that also got five stars I have found that comparing books to each other can be more helpful when it comes to rating books in a series it feels more fair to say did I enjoy book two as much as I enjoyed book one of this same story as compared to did I enjoy this why a fantasy story as much as I enjoyed this adult mystery thriller you know what I mean regardless of how expansive or limited the different types of books you read are it is so difficult even to compare two books that are of the same genre and deal with similar subject matter just because books are all different from one another and therefore their ratings kind of must be in my opinion while I do aim for my personal reading scale to remain consistent and to follow similar guidelines for each individual point on the scale I've come to realize it's just not probable for each book on one point to all be viewed identically and that's totally okay at the time of filming this video I felt so much pressure for every single book i rated 5 stars for example to be the exact same thing in terms of my reading experience and the author skill when it comes to writing the novel but the past few years have enabled me to identify the difference between comparison and categorization which I've used two different things I don't think the fact that every book I rate four stars is not the exact same four stars means that my scale is invalid I just think the subject matter that I'm measuring might be a little bit too complex for the scale I'm currently using and I'm okay with that for now well I understand that readings can be a very personal thing that we use to express how much we like a book they're also widely used to determine where a book lies on a spectrum on how it compares to other books I mean think about it disregard books for a second just thinking about ratings in general how do you feel when you look online and see a new movie that came out and it only has thirty percent on Rotten Tomatoes or if you're looking for new restaurants and the one you were considering going to ends up only having two stars while reading skills can be used as an arbitrary concept a lot of times they're used to determine something's worth although my opinions on rating scales have totally become more individualized and lenient since filming this video I wholeheartedly still agree with this statement I totally recognize that every person's rating scale is going to be different from one another you know my four stars might be your two stars or it might be your five stars or it might be your three stars but I don't think we can totally separate that from the fact that people will take your rating translate it into their own conception of what that rating means and sometimes use it to make their own conclusions on the books value especially as somebody who has an audience and people that follow my reviews people might see a three star rating for me and regardless of what I personally mean by that they will take it to mean anything from Emma somewhat enjoyed this book - Emma really did not like that book and there are a few people who will definitely take that into consideration for if they think they should pick up the book or not so although I presently embrace the fact that rating scales are really individualized and they mean something different to every person I can't ignore the fact that ratings are still on a widely recognised spectrum and people will take them into consideration regarding the books value and that will always add an additional pressure on me to make my readings more consistent in to still compare books to keep that rating as clear and constructive as it can be it really curious as to what's actually more important when we're reading a book is it comparison or individuality which I think when I was writing this video I had really aimed for my rating scale to be very focused on comparison I wanted it to be more similar to the rating scales of other reviewers so that when people looked at my rating they knew exactly what I meant I felt a severe pressure to have my rating scale be less about my personal enjoyment of the book and more about how the book stacks up to others as well as how my rating scale compares to other reviewers it seemed as if by rating on my personal enjoyment factor my reviews were less critical than others and therefore less valid now I definitely focus on the individuality of my reading experience I've accepted the fact that my independent rating scale is totally different from everyone else's and that's a great thing and I've also worked really hard to make it so my reviews are more in depth and clearer so that people don't need to rely just on the rating to understand what I'm talking about and they can determine how I feel about the book by reading the review that's an absolute change for when I first hold this video and I'm really happy about it I feel so much more confident and happy reviewing books because it's strictly about me and not about others and how they conduct the ratings so I don't consider myself to be a reviewer in like any respect but I do thought there's a handful of people I think internet that do appreciate my opinions on books for example you guys that being said I feel like my personal reading habits interfere with what I feel the book deserves a lot of the time this whole deal if I have right here under this topic it's really confusing and I don't know if I'm gonna get it across actually the way I want it to so just bear with me my exhibit I recently read the diviners by Libba Bray and I thought it was absolutely fantastic I loved almost everything about this book except for the multiple perspectives now I almost always disliked books if they have multiple perspectives I could love everything else about a book but for some reason I can never give it a five-star rating just because it has multiple perspectives yeah I'm over that it's not like I intentionally do that it just so happens that both perspectives are kind of distracting to me as a reader and they're just there's something that I don't like about them as a personal reader so with that info I'm sure you guys can guess that I only ended up giving the diviners a 4.5 star rating fuck that the diviners gets 5 stars and if I were to disregard my dislike for the multiple perspectives it definitely would win 5 stars since I've already this is just something that I deal with being the neurotic person that I am but a lot of times especially lately I find myself getting so frustrated when I have to sit down and analyze the content of a book like I know that this book deserves 5 stars I wish I could give it 5 stars but with Who I am as a reader I just can't do it and this isn't just with multiple perspectives I mean this happens in a lot of cases we all have our own reading biases and our only reading preferences I mean this happens with multiple genres for me and multiple troops that a book is centered around and I'm fully aware of the fact that when reading a book my responsibility is to be honest not to give it what I think it deserves for other people like I said readings are a personal thing and I understand that but I just hate giving out this rating and presenting it to the world when I know that like I'm not loving it to the potential that I could just because of who I am as a reader I just can't help but get angry with myself for having these biases constantly every time I read and letting it affect what I think a book actually deserves I think it's a problem with me as a reader not so much as a rater but still I feel like they're so connected with the things that we prefer in a book and how it affects our readings that I just I had to include it here after I learned to accept that individuality was a core thing I wanted to emulate with my ratings there have definitely been less instances where I am compelled to give a book for example a higher rating because I think other people will enjoy it and it was my reading preferences that sort of made me take away stars and I'm really pleased about that I think it's actually helped me to feel as if my reviews are being more genuine and critical because I'm not like pleading to the audience I'm being honest and open about how I personally feel about it even if other people 100% have the opportunity to feel differently reading biases are something that every single reader possesses we all have certain tropes that we dislike or we have certain themes that we feel strongly about and our rating really depends on how that is represented throughout the novel everyone has them and there is no reason for me to feel guilty about that and for having that play into my ratings because my personal preferences are a huge part there though reason I feel certain ways about books and there's nothing wrong with that currently my reviews are about me my reading taste my reading preferences and that's the way it should be I really want to work on getting rid and breaking down all of those reading related grudges that they feel are totally preventing me from reaching the potential that I could to like I just feel that if I was more open minded and I wouldn't let these preconceived biases really determine a book from the start for me that it would help me rate books more honestly and let me give a more accurate representation of what it's worth to me I feel a little conflicted on this statement because I agree with it and I feel I've done it but not necessarily for those reasons at the time of filming this I definitely had way more reading biases than I do currently for example with multiple perspectives I love books with multiple perspectives now I used to have an aversion to high fantasy I love high fantasy now same with adult books so by bringing down certain reading by says I've allowed myself to enjoy more types of books and that's a great thing but I don't necessarily think that breaking them down is like super beneficial when it comes to reading books because those biases and those preferences are so crucial to your individual reading experience and they are things that should be included in the books it's not a bad thing to dislike a certain genre or to not enjoy reading about a certain subject and have that be reflected in your review because people are reading them to get your personal experience not the experience of somebody else that doesn't have those preferences so I am very happy that over these last two years I have become a more open-minded reader and I don't like my past experiences with certain things necessarily prevent me from enjoying a book which i think is really really great so that really concludes my great rating crisis of 2016 the rest of the video is literally like a full minute and a half of me just like asking for prompts of things you can write at the comments so overall after watching this video again two years later I am like so much happier with my reading and reading and reviewing style and I couldn't be more pleased about that as a non interviewer I think I'll always feel compelled to perfect my rating scale and to improve my reading and reviewing skills which is a great thing I think that's something that every online reviewer should have but I've definitely given myself a little bit of leniency I have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to the different levels within one rating and being more accepting of my own personal reading experience as opposed to needing to be like strict and consistent and comparing myself to others and books to other books all the time I had a really great time watching this video and noticing my own improvements because I feel really positive about it now but definitely let me know in the comments below how did you feel about my great rating crisis of 2016 and I guess this could be considered my somewhat less intense great reading crisis of 2018 if you have any strong feelings on certain things about your personal reading scale or online review and culture in general I'd really love to know them because I think this is such an interesting discussion to be had in the community that is it for this video thank you so much for watching and I'll see you soon for a new video byehey what's up hello my name is Emma and today I'm basically going to be reacting to a video I mean two years ago back in the winter of 2016 I uploaded a video titled the great rating crisis of 2016 where I basically talked about a lot of my confusion in writing books a lot of the internal conflict I was going through regarding my rating scale and basically it was just me like over analyzing my five-star rating skill for about nine minutes I do consider this to be probably one of my favorite videos I've ever posted just because I feel it is very introspective it's very thought-provoking and I'm really proud of the way that I presented my thoughts on this subject but of course it's been two years and my views on reading skills have totally changed so I thought it'd be really interesting to go back watch this video and comment on it in the perspective that I have now so let's just dive right into fetus Emma video okay what's a pillow my name is Emma and today I'm doing a somewhat random video so in 2016 I really that I really wanted to be more critical when it came to reading and reviewing books entitled I feel like I can just breathe it everything five stars and I really did enjoy the majority the books I read last year but looking back on it I just feel like I didn't do as good of a job as I could have while judging them so I really wanted to make a video just doing some self-reflection bringing up some of the questions and concerns I have and hopefully through discussing this topic with you guys I can make some of the changes that I'd like to to my rating scale I do think that by making this video it was really helpful in determining what I really wanted to do with my reviewing style and rating scale so it would definitely accomplish what I was supposed to at the time I personally read my books on a five-star scale with like half points in between that seems gallantly associated with Goodreads because that's how they do their reading scale but I just feel like some other forms of reading are just way too broad and now that I've decided on this five star nine point scale I have to actually figure out what those different ratings mean the way I've always personally interpreted it was five stars means I really loved it four stars means I really really enjoyed it three stars means it was good it was okay two stars means that I was pretty underwhelmed and one star means that I really hate so I definitely think just off of that my rating scale and itself has totally changed four or five stars my rating is now that I absolutely loved it and I thought it was a masterpiece of a book for four stars I also really enjoyed my time reading it but I didn't think it was perfect for three stars it was somewhat enjoyable that it had significant flaws that impacted the story for me two stars is I was very underwhelmed and overall I didn't really enjoy my time reading it and one star is pretty much the same I hated it and I don't think it has any redeeming qualities for my half stars with 4.5 stars I use that to identify books that I loved as much as a 5 star read enjoyment wise but I don't feel it deserved 5 stars due to the construction of this story and with 3.5 stars I enjoyed the book as much as a 4 star book but certain flaws maybe hesitant to give it a higher rating as you can see with my half stars I tend to use the whole number above to represent my enjoyment and the whole number below to represents my feelings on the execution of the story it's two and a half stars and one and a half stars I do not use them frequently at all I don't think I've ever rated a book one of the half stars but it would probably follow the same format of the whole number above meaning my enjoyment and the whole number below meaning my feelings on how the story is independent of my enjoyment my problem is that I feel like on my personal rating scale my 4 star rating is super close to my 5 star rating or as my 3 star rating is super far away from my 2 star rating it's like the 4 star rating is super comparable it's the 5 star rating whereas 2 stars is a complete downgrade from 3 I feel that subconsciously I just think of like the distance between 3 and 2 being so different like on totally different scales even though each point is equidistant from each other so as you go down and start ratings they really should be kind of similar as to like 1 star above or one star below instead of it being really really great two really really bad really really fast I've just always struggled with keeping the star ratings equal from each other instead of having the top two be so negatively skewed and the bottom two be so positively skewed as an improvement I definitely feel like I've really evened out the distance between my star ratings I think that might be related to the fact that since filming this video I really tried to break free reading any book I just like overall enjoy five stars and I've allowed myself to get more comfortable with docking stars and half stars for how I feel about the novel critically and although I still rate the majority of my books between 4 and 5 stories because I genuinely enjoy everything I read I don't pick up anything if I don't think it's gonna be a four or five star read for me but I do have more four star beads in my like reading resume and even more three and three and a half stars as well and as those are still my more used rating I do feel like the distance between five and four stars is more even and a little bit further apart than it used to be and I think that's a really great thing so then we hit the point in my thought process where I'm like how does this book that I'm currently about to rate compared to other books that have that same rating for example I might just finish a book and absolutely love it I feel like it has no flaws and it deserves five stars absolutely but then I think well I gave Harry Potter five stars and I gave the Mortal Instruments five stars and I gave the Hunger Games five stars so is this book really a five star book I mean for me those are really extreme examples of five stars but I think you know what I'm trying to say so my answer that question is no my next thought is well does that mean that there's different levels under each number star rating and if so does that mean that my scale is actually invalid and that it's wrong to group these books together I still struggle with finding the line between having a consistent scale where I am comparing books to other books of the same rating and allowing myself to have different levels within that one rating when I do finish a book and I'm trying to decide on a rating I do still frequently ask myself well I gave this book however many years ago 4.5 stars so does this book that I just read still deserve 4.5 or is it more of a four and over the last two years I realized it's kind of impossible for every book to be given the same rating to actually be viewed equally especially because they used such a small scale when looking at my Goodreads statistics at the time of filming this video I've rated 232 books five stars over the past four years there is no way that 232 books can be viewed the same in my head some of those books are 5 stars because of the pure enjoyment that I felt while reading them and some of those books are 5 stars because I think the execution of the story was flawless if I didn't enjoy it exactly as much as another book that also got five stars I have found that comparing books to each other can be more helpful when it comes to rating books in a series it feels more fair to say did I enjoy book two as much as I enjoyed book one of this same story as compared to did I enjoy this why a fantasy story as much as I enjoyed this adult mystery thriller you know what I mean regardless of how expansive or limited the different types of books you read are it is so difficult even to compare two books that are of the same genre and deal with similar subject matter just because books are all different from one another and therefore their ratings kind of must be in my opinion while I do aim for my personal reading scale to remain consistent and to follow similar guidelines for each individual point on the scale I've come to realize it's just not probable for each book on one point to all be viewed identically and that's totally okay at the time of filming this video I felt so much pressure for every single book i rated 5 stars for example to be the exact same thing in terms of my reading experience and the author skill when it comes to writing the novel but the past few years have enabled me to identify the difference between comparison and categorization which I've used two different things I don't think the fact that every book I rate four stars is not the exact same four stars means that my scale is invalid I just think the subject matter that I'm measuring might be a little bit too complex for the scale I'm currently using and I'm okay with that for now well I understand that readings can be a very personal thing that we use to express how much we like a book they're also widely used to determine where a book lies on a spectrum on how it compares to other books I mean think about it disregard books for a second just thinking about ratings in general how do you feel when you look online and see a new movie that came out and it only has thirty percent on Rotten Tomatoes or if you're looking for new restaurants and the one you were considering going to ends up only having two stars while reading skills can be used as an arbitrary concept a lot of times they're used to determine something's worth although my opinions on rating scales have totally become more individualized and lenient since filming this video I wholeheartedly still agree with this statement I totally recognize that every person's rating scale is going to be different from one another you know my four stars might be your two stars or it might be your five stars or it might be your three stars but I don't think we can totally separate that from the fact that people will take your rating translate it into their own conception of what that rating means and sometimes use it to make their own conclusions on the books value especially as somebody who has an audience and people that follow my reviews people might see a three star rating for me and regardless of what I personally mean by that they will take it to mean anything from Emma somewhat enjoyed this book - Emma really did not like that book and there are a few people who will definitely take that into consideration for if they think they should pick up the book or not so although I presently embrace the fact that rating scales are really individualized and they mean something different to every person I can't ignore the fact that ratings are still on a widely recognised spectrum and people will take them into consideration regarding the books value and that will always add an additional pressure on me to make my readings more consistent in to still compare books to keep that rating as clear and constructive as it can be it really curious as to what's actually more important when we're reading a book is it comparison or individuality which I think when I was writing this video I had really aimed for my rating scale to be very focused on comparison I wanted it to be more similar to the rating scales of other reviewers so that when people looked at my rating they knew exactly what I meant I felt a severe pressure to have my rating scale be less about my personal enjoyment of the book and more about how the book stacks up to others as well as how my rating scale compares to other reviewers it seemed as if by rating on my personal enjoyment factor my reviews were less critical than others and therefore less valid now I definitely focus on the individuality of my reading experience I've accepted the fact that my independent rating scale is totally different from everyone else's and that's a great thing and I've also worked really hard to make it so my reviews are more in depth and clearer so that people don't need to rely just on the rating to understand what I'm talking about and they can determine how I feel about the book by reading the review that's an absolute change for when I first hold this video and I'm really happy about it I feel so much more confident and happy reviewing books because it's strictly about me and not about others and how they conduct the ratings so I don't consider myself to be a reviewer in like any respect but I do thought there's a handful of people I think internet that do appreciate my opinions on books for example you guys that being said I feel like my personal reading habits interfere with what I feel the book deserves a lot of the time this whole deal if I have right here under this topic it's really confusing and I don't know if I'm gonna get it across actually the way I want it to so just bear with me my exhibit I recently read the diviners by Libba Bray and I thought it was absolutely fantastic I loved almost everything about this book except for the multiple perspectives now I almost always disliked books if they have multiple perspectives I could love everything else about a book but for some reason I can never give it a five-star rating just because it has multiple perspectives yeah I'm over that it's not like I intentionally do that it just so happens that both perspectives are kind of distracting to me as a reader and they're just there's something that I don't like about them as a personal reader so with that info I'm sure you guys can guess that I only ended up giving the diviners a 4.5 star rating fuck that the diviners gets 5 stars and if I were to disregard my dislike for the multiple perspectives it definitely would win 5 stars since I've already this is just something that I deal with being the neurotic person that I am but a lot of times especially lately I find myself getting so frustrated when I have to sit down and analyze the content of a book like I know that this book deserves 5 stars I wish I could give it 5 stars but with Who I am as a reader I just can't do it and this isn't just with multiple perspectives I mean this happens in a lot of cases we all have our own reading biases and our only reading preferences I mean this happens with multiple genres for me and multiple troops that a book is centered around and I'm fully aware of the fact that when reading a book my responsibility is to be honest not to give it what I think it deserves for other people like I said readings are a personal thing and I understand that but I just hate giving out this rating and presenting it to the world when I know that like I'm not loving it to the potential that I could just because of who I am as a reader I just can't help but get angry with myself for having these biases constantly every time I read and letting it affect what I think a book actually deserves I think it's a problem with me as a reader not so much as a rater but still I feel like they're so connected with the things that we prefer in a book and how it affects our readings that I just I had to include it here after I learned to accept that individuality was a core thing I wanted to emulate with my ratings there have definitely been less instances where I am compelled to give a book for example a higher rating because I think other people will enjoy it and it was my reading preferences that sort of made me take away stars and I'm really pleased about that I think it's actually helped me to feel as if my reviews are being more genuine and critical because I'm not like pleading to the audience I'm being honest and open about how I personally feel about it even if other people 100% have the opportunity to feel differently reading biases are something that every single reader possesses we all have certain tropes that we dislike or we have certain themes that we feel strongly about and our rating really depends on how that is represented throughout the novel everyone has them and there is no reason for me to feel guilty about that and for having that play into my ratings because my personal preferences are a huge part there though reason I feel certain ways about books and there's nothing wrong with that currently my reviews are about me my reading taste my reading preferences and that's the way it should be I really want to work on getting rid and breaking down all of those reading related grudges that they feel are totally preventing me from reaching the potential that I could to like I just feel that if I was more open minded and I wouldn't let these preconceived biases really determine a book from the start for me that it would help me rate books more honestly and let me give a more accurate representation of what it's worth to me I feel a little conflicted on this statement because I agree with it and I feel I've done it but not necessarily for those reasons at the time of filming this I definitely had way more reading biases than I do currently for example with multiple perspectives I love books with multiple perspectives now I used to have an aversion to high fantasy I love high fantasy now same with adult books so by bringing down certain reading by says I've allowed myself to enjoy more types of books and that's a great thing but I don't necessarily think that breaking them down is like super beneficial when it comes to reading books because those biases and those preferences are so crucial to your individual reading experience and they are things that should be included in the books it's not a bad thing to dislike a certain genre or to not enjoy reading about a certain subject and have that be reflected in your review because people are reading them to get your personal experience not the experience of somebody else that doesn't have those preferences so I am very happy that over these last two years I have become a more open-minded reader and I don't like my past experiences with certain things necessarily prevent me from enjoying a book which i think is really really great so that really concludes my great rating crisis of 2016 the rest of the video is literally like a full minute and a half of me just like asking for prompts of things you can write at the comments so overall after watching this video again two years later I am like so much happier with my reading and reading and reviewing style and I couldn't be more pleased about that as a non interviewer I think I'll always feel compelled to perfect my rating scale and to improve my reading and reviewing skills which is a great thing I think that's something that every online reviewer should have but I've definitely given myself a little bit of leniency I have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to the different levels within one rating and being more accepting of my own personal reading experience as opposed to needing to be like strict and consistent and comparing myself to others and books to other books all the time I had a really great time watching this video and noticing my own improvements because I feel really positive about it now but definitely let me know in the comments below how did you feel about my great rating crisis of 2016 and I guess this could be considered my somewhat less intense great reading crisis of 2018 if you have any strong feelings on certain things about your personal reading scale or online review and culture in general I'd really love to know them because I think this is such an interesting discussion to be had in the community that is it for this video thank you so much for watching and I'll see you soon for a new video bye\n"