As of last year, I refuse to rate any art.

In this algorithm obsessed society, doing so can keep great art from people it will connect w it the most. Every book, even the truly awful ones, are more complex and deserve more respect than a 1-5 star rating systems

I give my 4 stars 5 stars and the rest I like 4 stars or I don’t review them

For me, a 1 is racism, sexism (a focus on the way women characters look while the men are just a name, all the women in the novel are stupid/shallow/careless, descriptions of breasts), or terrible grammatical or factual errors (one author confused the Civil War with the American Revolution... just HOW????). Most of my 1s have been self-published works from Kindle Unlimited.

Don't feel bad - I loved RP1 and Armada lol

My only complaint with the Hunger Games, and YA tropes of this type in general, is that it pushes the extremely common literary idea that City Folk Bad Country Folk Good. This propaganda is detrimental to real life, where, having lived in both areas, I find most of the horrible racist homophobic bigots I know are country folk (Trump Country) and most city folks I know are progressive and caring and expanding Medicaid etc.

I stumbled into Wool a long time ago when it was in the Amazon Prime free book stage.

Hello, book man, who are you?

If you enjoyed this series, maybe pickup Sand. It's got a similar feel and does, in my opinion, flip your political beliefs around better than the Silo series does.

Five thousand years of literary history, some of which is great fun, some of which explores the deepest truths of our world and the human spirit, and I'm gonna waste my precious time on this earth reading the Hunger Games or any other cash motivated YA series? Get out of here, sell that shit somewhere else. I'm an adult and I have my dignity.

Absolutely loved Wool. I always thought it would make for a great HBO limited series. (And then I saw another user's comment just now and it turns out someone is making a series!)

I felt like the next 2 books weren't as strong, but I have been thinking about giving the whole series another go.

It's okay, I appreciate the spirit of your comment. It's a bit of a sore spot for me having been the target of "attack helicopter" crap, so that's colouring my reaction.

Books has been around for almost as long as pens, and even longer than some mountains. Some of the most famous people in the world have written books, like Barack Obama, God, ... and even Gordon Ramsay. But.... what IS books? I've come here to Oxford University, in Cambridge, to ask Dr. Josh Phillips, a professor of books.

Editing is certainly a part of it, but errors can also refer to continuity issues, or more commonly, historical inaccuracy. For a recent example, I was reading a book that was started by the author and finished by one of her friends after she had died. The original author was extremely attentive to historical details, with very minor changes as the plot necessitated. The new author didn’t have the same attention to detail; I remember her saying a character drank Jäegermeister as a small detail, in a historical setting a full twenty years before Jäger was invented. I don’t mind one or two of these errors, but the more they rack up the more I’m pulled away from the story. The more attentive an author is to accuracy and detail, the more likely I am to be impressed, even if the story isn’t necessarily something I would choose to read again 🙂

Here's my thing: Why the schools? Leave the fucking children alone. Threaten someone with the power to influence the change you want to see, not some kids who just wanna make it through the day. Their life is hard enough smh.

I get the parallels with Battle Royale, but it was on a smaller scale compared to what Hunger Games was trying to say. Battle Royale was about controlling students from being too wild in the Japanese school system. Hunger Games was about controlling an entire populace with menace. Same concept, but Hunger Games had more to say about it and expanded outward where Battle Royale mostly stayed on the island.

I do believe I used the word’s “if” and “part of the curriculum”

I can tell you the places in which I went to school. First the private school wouldn’t even had made it into the library.

Second the public school I went to you are right the likelihood of me finding such a book not being marketed/staged/advertised like on the new release place in the library and by random. Not very likely in fifth grade. But for me this would be too young had I.

The public jr high I went to, I can guarantee that either parent provoked or here adult provoked information about this type of book being there. Would have in fact created my peers curiosity and it would have been done in a fashion that would have been very childish obviously, would have left tons of questions assumptions and rumors to be made not every household had a structure that had open discussion nor dialogue for children to be taught or given any clarity about. Had a very high catholic rooted system in place and for the fact these types of relationships don’t align in a family values foundations pre set before school.

The bigger challenge we face is. How about good grades being mandated for the basics that is in place vs the energy spent making sure books like this that cause controversy in the first place don’t even happen.

I see stats of high school reading and comprehension are subpar in this nation. How about we make sure they can read properly, comprehend properly, deduce properly.

Before we get our panties in a bunch to the point we are fighting to get it there in the first place and someone threatens to blow up schools for it. These are adult games being played. Wasted efforts when they could be spending time invested in neutral materials teaching kids fundamentals that don’t have such scaring a/effects should something go haywire such as this event did.

To be fair, I think Twilight gets as much hate as it does because of how problematic it is and that it's target audience buys wholesale into the idea that this is what romance should be (when in fact it's borderline abusive).

This is the same as teenagers saying Romeo and Juliet is the greatest love story, when... No kids, everyone ends up dead at the end. They tell you right at the beginning that it's a tragedy and not a model to emulate!

I fully agree. I came up with my way after I looked back at my earlier ratings and they sort of felt wrong. I think it's easy to rate a book higher when I've just finished it and I'm riding the emotional high from it.

Boiling a whole book down to a star rating is simplifying so much. Maybe too much. But star ratings in general are a whole another topic.

My ratings are generally like yours, but you seem a bit more focused on the editing. I certainly consider that if it reaches a point of distraction. I agree that poor proofing/editing tends to be the norm these days. It is also pretty common to find a book converted to digital with a lot of errors remaining. I read quite a lot of non-fiction and I also consider the accuracy, objectivity, and level of research. I am sure that not all of my Amazon ratings are on GR, but on GR I only have one 1-star.

I think so. Kids should be innocent and grow up without hearing about rape and babies being bashed to death and incest. I don't know why anyone would want that book anywhere near a kid.

I think i read that book as a kid too. A relative made me read it. Maybe we should ban it from schools?

I feel like I might have bad taste or something lmao, because I love things a lot of people criticize like The Hunger Games, and Eragon, and Ready Player One. A lot of people seems to dislike the last two especially. But you know what, I don't care in the least. I like what I like and I have the best time reading books like that!

I think enjoyment vs good writing is the main difference between peoples ratings in this thread. You can’t tell on Goodreads whether people think the book is well written even if it’s not their kind of book or if the book is their favourite but not necessarily high quality.

So, what happened to “Thou shalt not kill?” Or… you know, being a decent human being in any shape or form?

I don’t really understand some of the point you’re making. Why would the polity called Panem put you out? The reference to the name makes sense. Also, do you really think Battle Royale and the Hunger Games set out to do the same thing? Lastly, you’re absolutely correct about my post not having much depth. My title is not fully accurate. The objections to criticism isn’t Hunger Games specific, it’s more an an example of a trend I’ve seen.