Should Goodreads Ratings Be Taken With a Pinch of Salt?

As a rule of thumb, I'm more likely to read a book if its Goodreads rating is higher than four. But, like everything else, rules are meant to be broken.

I've been using Goodreads since 2013, and since then the way I choose my books has completely changed. Whilst before I would pick something up if the title and summary looked cool (or if it had a beautiful cover), now I have to read reviews first.

A couple of months ago I walked into Waterstones. From across the shop this book just caught my eye. The cover was gorgeous, and the summary looked amazing. It appeared to be everything I wanted in a book, so I quickly bought it, went home, and read. Now this book wasn't terrible. I did kind of enjoy it. The thing is, it was such a disappointment, and it wasn't the story that I had imagined in my mind. If I read the reviews, I'd have surely known that, right?

On Goodreads, there are a couple of reviewers that I trust. Granted that there isn't one reviewer who has exactly the same tastes as me, but there are some who I find honest and critical enough to give decent feedback on a book. One of these reviewers has a taste that is (kind of) similar to mine, and a lot of the books that she rates five stars have a rating under four.

Well that goes against my 'rule'.

Actually, some of my favourite books don't have incredibly high ratings. Take Rosamund Hodge's books, for example. I adore them, but both of her books have a rating that hovers around 3.7-3.8. In my opinion they were five stars, so for me the Goodreads rating wasn't much of a help. Also, a couple of Melina Marchetta's books have ratings below 4 and I genuinely believe that she's an absolute genius.

Furthermore, the more times a book is read, there is a chance that it will get a lower rating. If a book covers controversial themes, lots of people are likely to dislike it. Equally, books which have a lot of sex or swearing might get marked low by a lot of readers if they weren't expecting it.

There's also this weird phenomena where people rate books before they're even released. Uhh... what? If you follow me on twitter, you'll probably know that I'm ridiculously excited for Susan Dennard's Truthwitch (you don't know how much self restraint I'm using not to write this all in capitals). It already has some one star reviews by people who haven't read it.

It's also got to be taken into account that people review books differently. If I rate a book 2.5 stars, it means it was an average read (I often round down those ratings because Goodreads is stupid and doesn't allow half stars) but for a lot of people, the same rating would mean the book was terrible. There isn't really a definitive guide for rating books, and everyone does it differently.

There's also the considerable factor that people like different books.

I suppose that in the future I shouldn't take Goodreads ratings so seriously, especially when so many gems have low ratings and books that I hate receive an abundance of five star reviews. But sometimes, it's helpful to know what other people think before you read.

* * * 

EDIT: I'm adding this in because of yet another incident on Goodreads where an author has confronted a reader asking them to take down a review just because it wasn't positive. I just wanted to add that whilst Goodreads ratings aren't always reliable, I believe 100% that one star ratings are honest and valid, and as long as they aren't rude they're just as useful as five star reviews.