I read a lot.
Before I go to bed, even if it's 3a, I will take the time to read from my Kindle DX, even if it's only 10 paragraphs before I find myself dozing off.
Once I read all these books, I really want to do reviews on them, to share some good (and not-so-good) reads with others.
However, doing a review like I did for, say, Satan's Sister by Star Jones, take a lot of time and energy for me.
So…
I've been thinking long and hard about a way to do book reviews that gives you more than just a star rating but it doesn't take me hours to write.
And…
Today, I finally came up with a system that I'm going to implement.
Now…
Keep in mind that this is my system. There may be others systems, but this one is mine. I'm not asking you to like or use my system. If you like my system, use it. If you don't like my system, don't use it.
Now for the system…
My system has five categories:
- Book cover
- Cohesive storyline
- Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation (SGP)
- Character development
- Credibility
I each of these categories, the book will be given five points. Then the points will be averaged to make up the star rating.
For example…
A book I recently reviewed on Goodreads is Where Did We Go Wrong? by Monica Mathis-Stowe. This is what my original 4-star review said:
If you love drama, you'll love this book. I'm not into drama at all so I cringed a lot while reading this book, but I have to put my personal preferences aside to give the book the rating it deserves. I took away one star for some editing issues and overuse of name brand items (e.g, Gucci, Prada, etc.) I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.
With my new system, this is what the review for the same book would look like:
Where Did We Go Wrong? by Monica Mathis-Stowe
Author's summary: In this newly released romantic suspense novel, best friends Gabby, Maxine and Joy protect each other at all costs, even if it means keeping secrets that turn their lives upside down. Gabby has no boundaries when it comes to getting what she wants. She pulls out every trick in the book to keep her daughter's married father out of their lives but keep his money in her bank account, while Maxine lives for her family but when her husband's excessive spending lands them in more debt than they can handle, the stress takes a toll on their perfect marriage. After Joy's loyalty to her controlling mother causes her to lose the only man she's ever loved, she marries a man she barely knows. When the wedding is over, she quickly realizes she made the biggest mistake of her life and it puts everybody she loves in danger. Unfortunately, someone will have to pay the ultimate price with their life.
- Book cover – 5 points
- Cohesive storyline – 5 points
- Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation (SGP) – 4 points – misspelled words, missing punctuation
- Character development – 5 points
- Credibility –3 points – Gabby is just unbelievable and extremely disgusting; before speaking with the author I was under the impression that the women were older, mainly because of the men in their lives; I was surprised to learn that the author was writing about women in their late 20s; that didn't come across to me in the story, since their partners seemed to be so well-established in their professions
