So here's the question:
Do you go back and look at your grades and wonder if maybe you weren't nearly as tough on the book as you should have been?
This isn't re-reads I'm talking about or those books that we all have on the keeper shelf from 1989 that we just know aren't going to be quite the book we remembered from way back when.
I'm talking about a few months to a year later when some of us do our year in review.
Tara Marie definitely has some books she thinks weren't as wonderful once the afterglow faded (one of them is an Anne Stuart but I'm okay *reaches for puffer*) and I dare say that many of us probably have the same reaction after a few months.
Jennie also was talking about her favourite books from this past year and mentioned how only one of her books received a perfect 10.
Yes, only one 10. I think of a 10 as perfection. I'll probably only ever give 10s to re-reads of old beloved favorites. Because getting better with each subsequent reading is the ultimate test for books. The 10 for 2006 was The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. Probably my favorite book of all time. And my first blog post, which completely does not do it justice. But my writing, no matter how gushing, could never do it justice.
In that moment I started to wonder what book I would have rated a 10 and immediately thought of Mr. Impossible by Loretta Chase. It was only after thinking on it for a moment that I remembered it took me a couple of sittings to get into it so it couldn't be as perfect as I thought. Still, it is a keeper.
Then I thought of my favourite read from this year which has to be Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward but, wait. The lessers bore me, the multiple characters tend to stress me out while I'm waiting for the romance to continue and even though the book is extremely romantic, it was truly the story of Zsadist and how he came back to life.
Huh.
Okay, wait.
Got it!
Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh. Yeah. Perfec - crap. I was a wee bit squicked out about human kids changing into animals whenever they wanted. (I could explain it but we all know that would be another post - let's just say it probably has something to do with me not wanting to read YA books as a rule either). Then there was that one inconsistency that I figured out a few days later but thought that maybe it would be addressed in the following books. And really, there were a few parts that were slow so it wasn't all perfection. Still a keeper though.
Alright!
Let's think.
Okay, I know what you are thinking. 'Pick an Anne Stuart book, afterall, you are a fangirl!'
I am a fangirl but then I'm also not blind to faults. As much as I loved Devil's Waltz there were things that irked but it's Anne Stuart and I know that I'm going where I want -
Holy shit it just came to me!!
Anne Stuart's Lord of Danger!
*and breathe*
I can't even tell you how excited I am right now! Why couldn't I remember that this book is sheer perfection for me!?
Good God I feel so much better. I was getting worried that I had never read a book that I would rate a perfect 10.
I have a book!!
Phew, it's a good thing you guys came and helped me out.
See, I was even thinking about my favourite Linda Howard book Dream Man but I'm not sure I would give it a 10 and then there is Suzanne Brockmann and maybe one of her non-SEAL books - oh, oh!!! Time Enough for Love - 10!! AND it's a TT which rarely work for me because of the logistics but she even managed to convince me that her ending was plausible!!
Woohoo! This is getting good!
Okay, okay.
My point, my point, my point *mumbles while staring at the ceiling*
Ah, if you rate a book a keeper, does it mean it's perfect?
Yeah, that might be my point.
You get to see when I'm all 'damn skippy' about a book and cry 'KEEPER, KEEPER, KEEPER'.
Well, it doesn't mean the book is perfect. It just means it was in the A grade category. Like in Z's book there were things that bothered me but it's still a keeper and it will live on my Keeper pile until 20 years from now when I wonder what I was thinking OR when it truly becomes something I can't part with ever.
Then there are the books that I thought were a keeper and a year later I'm wondering why it got such a high grade from me. Brockmann's many SEAL books are examples of that. Her last one that caused me to give up on her was listed as a KEEPER at the time (before blog) but as I thought more about it I was just overly disappointed with the whole book. Then there are the books that I have read and given keeper status and I don't have a clue what they were about!
No! I'm not old!
I just don't have the greatest memory. Heck, I couldn't remember what Devil's Waltz was about until I re-read the first page - sure, then it all comes rushing back and I can't re-read the book because I remember everything!
Okay, where in the hell did my point go!? How did we get here?
*took a left, sharp 180 and*
Enough about me. What about you and your grading system? Do you sometimes look back and wish you hadn't been so forgiving or even so harsh? If you are blogging do you feel like you can go back and re-grade? Is the grade only important to you and not a marker that another person should use to read a book? (ooooh, I just figured out something else about myself - I only use grades as a reference point and look at the review to see how the book did except if it's a book I'm waiting desperately for - then I just glance at the grade and run).
Okay, let's stop before I find another bend in my curve.
That's a Wrap!!
Smoke 'em if you got 'em!
14 comments:
Okay, there were about 30 minutes where I managed to wipe out my blog template - I think I have it all back but just wanted to check that the text size is okay - can everyone read this? Or do I need to go another one bigger?
Thanks guys and yes, I peed a little when I saw the mess I made!
CindyS
Looks fine! Just in case, you'd better save your template as a text file for backup!
Ok, grades: yeah, I do sometimes look back and wonder just why I was so generous with my grades, when now I can barely remember what the book was about, so it obviously wasn't so memorable. That happened with the last couple of Julia Quinn books, for instance. I'd read them and enjoy them very much WHILE I was reading, so I'd give them a B+. But then, thinking back, I got a very "meh" feeling.
What you mention with the Brockmann book, the one you loved at first but then you became disgusted by, that same thing happened to me with some Elizabeth Peters books, the 4 books in her Amelia Peabody series which deal with the romance between Ramses and Nefret. While I was reading, I was completely absorbed... cliff-hanger endings, melodrama, etc, I just gobbled it up and gave it an A+. But then, free from the spell, I started to resent the manipulation. The books after that just haven't been the same quality that I loved BEFORE the Ramses/NEfret books.
Your blog's fine, everything's back to normal :D
As for grades, well it goes both way. Sometimes I worry I'm being too harsh, because it's a review and sometimes, I think I'm too generous and being biased. But hey, giving grades are just a way to show your appreciation for a book. It's not definite and all. Like for Jennie, she says when she gives a 10, it must be perfect. Well, even if she would give a 8 or a 9, I would still know it was a pretty good book and would try it.
as for keeper book, I'm a book hog. I'm going to keep about 80% of everything I've read :P it doesn't say much for me... actually, it says a lot when I decide NOT to keep a book :P
There are quite a number of books I look back at and think I was far too generous in grading them, and some of them I reviewed for AAR. Lots of times, looking back after the afterglow has faded, I'd more realistically grade them down a third or even two-thirds of a grade (B to B- or C+). I try not to think about this too often, and, afterall, the review is up there to tell my impressions, and for the most part, that stands.
Once in a great while I reread a book and realize it's BETTER than I remembered or graded the first time around. I love that when that happens. The Dream Hunter by Laura Kinsale is one I can name off the top of my head.
Do you go back and look at your grades and wonder if maybe you weren't nearly as tough on the book as you should have been?
I don't give grades. My books are either keepers or traded. I save all of my keepers for a year & then reread my thoughts & decide if I still want to keep them. Usually there are at least one or two I decide to trade. Rarely I'll go back and hunt down a book I've already traded, but that's only happened twice.
Ah, if you rate a book a keeper, does it mean it's perfect?
No book is perfect, but keepers have traits that force me to overlook the problems every time I read it.
Do you sometimes look back and wish you hadn't been so forgiving or even so harsh?
I do that often, but then I also figure that each reader has things that bug them more than the same issue might bug me. IMO, the more diverse opinions on a given book the better. I try to give more of a plot summary than a critique so another reader can make up their own mind.
Forgot to mention: doing a review, actually having to think about what was good and what wasn't, very often changes the grade I'd instinctively thought to give the book when I first finished it. It's worked both ways, sometimes lowering it, when I realized that, say, I had been annoyed by a lot of things, or sometimes improving it.
Your template looks fine to me, babe, but I'd do as Rosario suggested and save it.
As for my reviews, I don't do this so much now, but when I first started reviewing I often graded higher than I would now.
Every Breath You Take by Judith McNaught is a perfect example. I reviewed it in Jan. of last year and upon re-read, I didn't enjoy it near as much as I made it seem. The special edition is much better, and definitely covered a lot of the faults I had with the original hardback version, but still, the book wasn't good.
Now, however, if I give a book a 5 (my highest rating), I mean 5. IMO, there isn't a book written that's going to be perfect. That isn't going to have at least one thing that bothers a reader. But if, as a whole, the story/characters/plot/whatever work and leave me feeling satisfied, that's worth a perfect score.
If, however, the one thing is so big it eclipses my enjoyment, then the grade goes down. Does that make sense?
If you go through my reviews since about March of last year, though, you'll see I only gave a 5 to about 2 books. And I still stand by them. So there you go. :)
-Holly
Gosh. My husband certainly isn't perfect, but he's definitely a keeper. I don't think there is such a thing as a perfect book. At least not that I've found. And I'm incredibly easy to please! I like everything I read (just about).
I only started keeping a book log last year and I didn't rate my books. Just wrote little blurbs about what I liked or didn't like.
Love the map in the side bar. As the locations scrolled by, I kept noticing the hits in Glen Burnie, Baltimore and Abingdon, MD, all near me, and wondered who those romance readers were.
Grades -- in retrospect, some of mine were too generous or too harsh. A couple of books that were B reads for me at first, but when I re-read them and thought about them later, they were B+ or A- reads. And vice versa.
But my grades are pretty subjective anyway. I don't have any formal criteria, just a gut feeling about what works for me.
What a good discussion you've got here, Cindy!!
I think it's really rare for any of us to find a book that we thought was perfect. I mean, the whole book, not one thing you'd change. I can only think of a few for me. I like to have a grade especially for those books, but there are lots of books that I love so much they make me want to dance around and sing that I wouldn't label as perfect.
I like to tweak my grades sometimes. Hey, it's my opinion. I can change my mind. The afterglow wears off and sometimes the book just doesn't make a lasting impression.
And we all have our particular quirks (like being squicked out by children turning into animals LMAO) that wouldn't cause a problem for someone else. You're right, grades for books are just reference points, a way to label and organize them. I read the actual reviews to see if it's something that sounds like it will appeal to my own little odd self. :)
I often think I've upgraded a book too much the first time. Very rarely the other way though. And yep - a keeper is perfect - to me :) It's not necessarily perfectly written, but it's the perfect book for me.
Do you go back and look at your grades and wonder if maybe you weren't nearly as tough on the book as you should have been?
Oh yeah, so much so that I'm changing my rating system this year to try to allow for more differences in the ratings. I'm going to the number system.
If you rate a book a keeper, does it mean it's perfect?
I rate books as Keepers if I know I want to read them again as soon as I finish the first time. I might keep other books (and heaven knows I do) but only rate them as excellent, because I might read them again. Or because its part of a series I enjoy or that isn't finished or whatever.
Do you go back and look at your grades and wonder if maybe you weren't nearly as tough on the book as you should have been?
Nahhhh. I occasionally wonder what everybody else's book looked like, though...since it must have been way different from my copy. ;-)
Well, I should be honest I keep just about everything I read at least for a while. Then go on a mad purge and get rid of everything I'm not interested in rereading. I'm not really looking for perfection. More like excellent entertainment value.
PS...I was a wee bit squicked out about human kids changing into animals whenever they wanted. That was one of the things I loved about the book--LOL.
I always can find something a little wrong with books. I agreed with what you said about LA, plus in that one the slang really started to bug ("Messie Me?") But I've read it about a thousand times, and it makes me sigh just to think about it.
For a long time I didn't use a rating system. Now I have one, but it's more to sum up the book in my mind than anything. I kinda stick it in the end there. I prefer to go by the review itself, because something it the review might spark you to read it, even if the reviewer didn't like it.
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