I graduated with my masters in international relations and had just spent years reading political biographies, history, and political theory. I even read that stuff for fun that was unrelated to my degree. Once I got the degree I needed to unwind from it all and decided to give Hunger Games a shot when I found the trilogy in hardback at Costco for like $15. Turns out, they were exactly what I needed. Way below the reading level I was used to but good page turners that kept me engaged with the story. That was 10 years ago and I might actually go back and give them another read!

One time I was at a restaurant with a friend and this guy was there with a girl he was very much trying to impress. He kept talking about his love of German beer but the one he kept gushing about was Beck's...that's what all the Battle Royale comparisons sounded like to me. I like Battle Royale, but it's not even an original concept on its own!

Yours is exactly how I rate mine.

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I find it hard to rate any book a 1, even if I hated it, since I can usually find some redeeming quality about it. Either that or it's so bland that it doesn't seem like it warrants the vitriol that a 1 seems to imply.

I try to use the entire 5 star scale rather than just the top end. The worst book I've ever read deserves my 1 star rating, even if I enjoyed parts of it. I don't need to save that 1 star for "the worst book I can imagine" because that is a book that I'll never read. By the same logic, I'm happy to give books I love 5 stars even if they have noticeable flaws.

My average rating on Goodreads is 3.41 stars.

That makes me think of the musical of Reefer Madness where a running joke in songs between the leads was talking about being happy like Romeo & Juliet because they only just started reading it.

Look this is happening everywhere but it is genuinely worse in the USA and your idiot politicians want use banning books to "make America great". Your country is screwed

I hesitate to rate any book a 1 since I think you can usually find some redeeming quality in any book, even if you might not like it.

I would really like more info on this if anyone has it.

It's usually the ending that makes me downgrade my rating too. I also factor in re-readability. Most books fall in the "3" category for me, a few might make it into the "4" category, but "5"s are the rarest for me.

I think she’s already married to Michael Kramer.

Dude how can you expect people to read nowadays with an attention span of less than a minute?

Oh gotcha, I did slightly misread what you said. Actually I think I agree with you. It isn't a typical YA book in terms of the stereotypical themes.

5 - loved it, finished it in a ridiculous amount of time because i couldn't put it down and i need an adaptation immediately even though i know it will disappoint me.

4 - loved it, and i need a sequel or two as i'm not quite ready to leave the world/character.

3 - i had a good time.

2 - my time was mostly wasted.

1 - DNF

Just because you have internal narration doesn’t mean it moves at the same speed as regular speech. Normal speech is limited by the speed at which you can physically move your mouth, not by how fast you can comprehend words/parse meaning. My internal narration moves at roughly 2.5x-3x speed if I were to change my settings. Maybe even a bit higher. But at that speed it sounds garbled to actually listen to a sped-up recording. At the same time I adjust audio to at least 1.6 to 2.2 depending on how slow the narrator is, which is much closer to normal speaking speed than a dramatized narration. The speed at just the regular setting is intolerably slow to me, but I’m a fast talker and always have been.

I especially enjoy when I'm reading and narrate a scene "incorrectly" or not in line with my characterizations. Then I go back and read the same lines a different way until it fits in the "mind movie" better.

The first book is still a favorite of mine. While the second book (Black House) is good, the first 100 pages of it are more like "place/scene setting" and is a slow go.

1 Star - Absolute chore to finish, usually had to read for school or uni.
2 Star - Average. Pretty much a neutral rating.
3 Star - Was ok, but wouldn't read again.
4 Star - Decent book, that if only it had a few tweaks would have been solid. Might read again.
5 Start - Excellent/Masterpiece, will definitely read again and highly recommend to others. Only ever given 15 books this rating.

Just to make a guess of it, I might feel less warm to about 60-70% of the books after a while. I'll recognize that they weren't really special enough to stay with me or make me want to recommend them as much as when I first finished them

Yes, there is some great exposition about the Dark Tower mythos in the second book. The first book doesn't involve any crossover with Dark Tower but the flipping between worlds is indicative of different "levels" of the Tower.

> I’m kind of glad I’m less sophisticated than many readers on this subreddit

lol You’re not.

This book is Gay is not a good example and has caught flack from gays as being unrealistic and lacking useful information. And of course, young people are reading it because the stick-up-the-ass Republicans are trying to ban it.

In any case, I'm still trying to figure out how including Rosa Parks violating the law that required a Black person to give up their seat to a white person in a history book is "dangerous" and "woke". The only chance Republicans have to win in 2024 is to push through as many voter suppression laws as they can.

12ft.io yo

5 star for all books that I didn't hate 2 for books I hated

It's an unfortunate truth that the star rating is used by Amazon(Goodreads owners) to hide and shadowban authors.

So, star ratings that reflect your actual thoughts can cause the author whose book you liked to disappear and those authors to give up.

Oddly enough, there's so many restrictions on what kinds of books prisoners are allowed to have that the prison library might suit them to a T.

PSA Donate books from the approved list to prison libraries. A good percentage of the prison population is incarcerated for non-violent crimes, and they're bored. They actually like getting books for older kids/teens because many prisoners are starting on a lower reading level. Old textbooks too.