gottapeanow
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by gottapeanow on Oct 20, 2014 4:44:08 GMT
I am in a discussion on Goodreads with a few people. I rate a book low if I like the entire book but hate the end, or even just last chapter. Usually, I hate an ending due to lack of closure. IOW, even if the ending is really sad, as in Allegiant, that won't ruin a book for me. OTOH, I rate a book high even if I trudge through the beginning but love the ending. Some of the people on GR don't seem to understand my POV. I explained that it's like a bad break-up. Doesn't matter how "good" the relationship was. If it ended terribly, it left a sour taste in my mouth. And I rate it accordingly - poorly. Here's another analogy I didn't use but probably should. In running, you might have a slow start. But if you pick up the pace at the end, you have a good chance of winning. Does the ending make or break the book? Or do you rate it on an "overall" feeling. FWIW, the book we were discussing was The Maze Runner. I liked the entire book until the very end. There was zero resolution and such a feeling of unsettledness that you have no idea what happens next. No closure. So I gave it 2/5 stars. A few of the other people seemed shocked, I tell, you, shocked!  OTOH, I trudged through nearly the first half of Code Name Verity. Almost quit reading it at least twice. But stuck with it. And loved the ending and gave it a 5-star rating. If I would have rated the whole book, I would have probably have given it 3 stars. What say the rest of my fellow-reading peas? ETA: I should clarify that this happens in maybe 10% of the books I read. And that's a high estimate. Usually, I rate the entire book. |
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Post by Eddie-n-Harley on Oct 20, 2014 4:45:59 GMT
OTOH, I trudged through nearly the first half of Code Name Verity. Almost quit reading it at least twice. But stuck with it. And loved the ending and gave it a 5-star rating. If I would have rated the whole book, I would have probably have given it 3 stars. What say the rest of my fellow-reading peas? I don't understand. Why did you just rate the ending? Why didn't you rate the whole book? |
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gottapeanow
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Post by gottapeanow on Oct 20, 2014 4:54:09 GMT
Because the ending makes or breaks the book for me. So if the ending leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I rate it poorly. If the ending is really good, I rate it highly.
This is really only an issue if the ending is way different - either much better or much worse - than the rest of the book.
And it's just my perspective and reasoning.
Lisa
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perumbula
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Post by perumbula on Oct 20, 2014 5:04:49 GMT
I rate a book as a whole. I do understand your argument, but to me it misses the point of a book. The novel is the whole thing, from beginning to ending. It is not it's end, just like any story it encompasses the whole thing. I would rate Allegiant poorly not just on the very pointless ending, but on the poorly thought out plot and rushed execution (excuse the pun.)
If you are going to rate Maze Runner on the ending, it should be done with the understanding that Maze Runner is the first book in a trilogy. The last chapter of the Maze Runner is not the end of the story.
Rating on just the ending is like saying you had a horrible vacation because someone stole $20 from you on your last day in Paris.
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Deleted
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Aug 18, 2025 21:03:14 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2014 5:06:26 GMT
I rate the whole book. Not just the ending. While your method seems to make sense to you it is meaningless to me. But it won't take me long to figure out you have no idea how to really rate literature and start ignoring you.
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Post by lesleyanne on Oct 20, 2014 6:53:52 GMT
I understand what you're saying, but I don't agree with your point. If I had a great relationship, let's say a great close friend who I enjoy and value and for some reason things change and the friendship ends in a bad way. I wouldn't rate the whole frienship badly just because it ended badly. I'd remember all the good times and the enjoyment I had while it lasted and rate the relationship highly even with the unfortunate ending.
Likewise, I rate a whole book. There have been books I loved until the very end that I didn't enjoy those last 20 pages. This might cause me to reduce my rating SLIGHTLY, but would not diminish my entire rating of the read.
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Post by sassiescrapper on Oct 20, 2014 7:32:46 GMT
I also base my ratings on the whole book. Gone Girl was the exception. I changed my rating from a 4 to a 5 even though I really struggled to get through the first half of the book because that second half was crazy good! I rated Dragonfly in Amber a 4 even though I LOVED the ending. Some parts of the book moved slow for me. I have to really really dislike a book to give it a 2 or really really love it to rate it a 4 or a 5 but I would never base my rating solely on the ending. Just my 2 cents. I'm also on goodreads.com but I don't post any reviews or typically engage with other readers there. I find I would rather talk/chat about a book with my book club or friends in-person.  |
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Post by gar on Oct 20, 2014 7:41:46 GMT
I understand what you're saying but your method ignores the pleasure you got from 9/10ths of the book and doesn't give a true indication of the strength of the book which can be 'misleading' in a sense.
If a book is well written, the characters are rounded, the plot intriguing etc etc then that deserves to be highly rated. If the ending is disappointing then I will mark it a little lower than I would have done had it been more pleasing but I won't base my whole mark on that alone.
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BarbaraUK
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Post by BarbaraUK on Oct 20, 2014 11:10:11 GMT
I would rate the whole book not just a few pages, that just does not make sense to me.
I would add that if I had bought a book given a five star rating on recommendation and then after buying it find out that rating was based only on a few pages, I would be very disappointed in the person doing the rating, to say the least!!
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grinningcat
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Jun 26, 2014 13:06:35 GMT
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Post by grinningcat on Oct 20, 2014 11:19:24 GMT
Rating a book solely on how it ends is like those who rate recipes but change a bunch of the ingredients. The ending is only part of the book, the rest of the book is just as valid but you completely ignore it in your analysis. You may personally rate books that way, but for public discussion/rating, you're skewing the numbers with faulty reasoning. I would understand not giving a perfect score, but to purposely mark low based upon solely the ending is faulty logic in my mind.
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Post by Basket1lady on Oct 20, 2014 11:22:51 GMT
I agree with the others--I wouldn't rate a book based only on it's end. Is it well written? Does it tell a good story? Does it make me think? ... all those are important to a book review.
If you are reading Young Adult fiction trilogies, I would expect the first books to not end well. Often a book is chopped up to make it into a trilogy because it makes the books shorter and appear more readable. And there is a lot of money in trilogies.
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Post by pjaye on Oct 20, 2014 11:45:56 GMT
It's always the whole book for me too.
The ending is just one part of the whole and it doesn't generally make or break a book for me (unless it was some ridiculous "It was all a dream" ending).
I don't agree with your logic on rating just the end...so a bad book gets a good score because the author thought of a good way to end it? That makes no sense to me.
I don't mind discussions or reviews where a person's opinion is that they didn't like the ending (or any other part of the book) but I really dislike reviews/ discussions where people decide what the author should have written...to me there is no 'shouldn't have' ...it's the author's story to tell and they wrote it the way they wanted.
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Post by whopea on Oct 20, 2014 12:12:52 GMT
I'm another one that bases my rating on the entire book - the plot, the character development, likability of the characters, the ability to hold my interest through the entire story and the ending. I try not to weigh any of those individual factors greater than another.
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Post by anxiousmom on Oct 20, 2014 12:38:54 GMT
I am another who rates the book based on the whole book, not just the end.
The end factors into the whole and a truly crappy end will get 'points off' for that, but it will also lose points based on a lot of other factors. At book club, I try to keep too much of my personal opinions out the rating of a book...like I hate books that jump perspective from person to person or from the future to the past. Drives me insane. I try not to base my rating of a book based solely on the fact that I hate that writing style, because I feel like the fact that I don't style shouldn't play into whether or not the book was well written or not.
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Post by picotjo on Oct 20, 2014 12:42:03 GMT
I also rate the whole book. If I don't like the beginning or the end, I may lower my score but then I explain in the comments what I didn't like.
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Post by Yoki on Oct 20, 2014 12:43:40 GMT
I rate the whole book, but I also have a personal rating system that most other people don't understand. I don't ever rate a book 1 star because if I dislike it that much I just don't finish it. 2 stars is a book that I haven't liked much but there was some compelling reason for me to see it through to the end. 3 stars is an enjoyable book for me. I might not remember much about it when it's done, but I liked what I was reading. 4 stars means a book really gave me a lot of enjoyment & things to think about. 5 stars almost never happens, because that means that I liked a book so much (or thought the information was so important/compelling) that I would consider buying it to re-read. (I'm a 100% library girl so spending money on a book is high praise for me!)
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Post by utmr on Oct 20, 2014 13:09:43 GMT
Agree, while book. A lousy beginning or ending may drag the overall rating down, but it's the book as a whole.
I try to save 5 stars for truly "best book ever", 4 for really great, loved it and 3 for good book, maybe not the best ever but a pleasant evening's entertainment.
2 is for things that were really awful and as someone said up thread, I seldom give 1s because jf it's that bad I just put it down. I think the last 2 I gave was for "One Second After" because the characters were so stupid that by the end I was rooting for the bad guy to just shoot them all. If you can't make me care about your protagonist then you get a 2.
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luckyexwife
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Post by luckyexwife on Oct 20, 2014 13:14:55 GMT
FWIW, the book we were discussing was The Maze Runner. I liked the entire book until the very end. There was zero resolution and such a feeling of unsettledness that you have no idea what happens next. No closure. So I gave it 2/5 stars. A few of the other people seemed shocked, I tell, you, shocked! While I understand most of what you are saying, that is not how I rate books. I rate on the whole book. I do not at all understand rating a book that is first in a series by the ending. Why would it have closure and a tidy ending? You know the story continues in the next book, right? Why would you give it a low rating just for the last chapter? |
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Post by gar on Oct 20, 2014 13:49:09 GMT
[quote author=" gottapeanow" source's OTOH, I trudged through nearly the first half of Code Name Verity. Almost quit reading it at least twice. But stuck with it. And loved the ending and gave it a 5-star rating. If I would have rated the whole book, I would have probably have given it 3 stars. What say the rest of my fellow-reading peas? [/quote] Just reading through this thread again and noticed this.....so you'll give the highest possible score which might really encourage others to buy/read this book even though you actually think its pretty rubbish except for the last bit. Yeah, not understanding that at all. |
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Post by lynnek on Oct 20, 2014 13:55:59 GMT
I rate the whole book and think about it occasionally while I read. For example, while reading I am thinking well, so far this is a three star for me because...." As the book progresses I may go higher or lower. I will say that there are times that a particularly good end has made me bump it up a star. But rarely, if ever has it made it lower. Like Pjaye, I don't like to judge how an author writes his or her story line. In fact, I actually love it when an author has the guts to write the story they want knowing it won't be popular with many readers.
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~Susan~
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Post by ~Susan~ on Oct 20, 2014 13:57:25 GMT
Another one here who rates the book as a whole. If the ending is especially good or bad could make me add or take away a star, but that is it.
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Post by Lindarina on Oct 20, 2014 13:57:27 GMT
I rate the book as a whole. A good book with a bad ending will lose a star, but not as many as if I were rating the book by how it ends alone.
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Post by Goldynn on Oct 20, 2014 14:01:16 GMT
I'm another one who rates the whole book. I really don't understand why it would be rated any other way?
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georgiapea
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Post by georgiapea on Oct 20, 2014 15:20:09 GMT
I feel you need to belong to a book club where everyone rates books like you do. Otherwise you are just going to antagonize the rest of the group. Not that rating books within a group is a big thing in the grand scheme of life I suppose. I find that most current books stop, rather than end because the next book is designed to carry the theme forward. Same people with a few additions and new twists.
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Post by eebud on Oct 20, 2014 15:22:51 GMT
If I was rating a book, I would definitely rate it on the whole book. For example, I loved Gone Girl but hated the ending. I would not give it 1 or 2 stars because of that. I would probably give it 4 stars and explain why it didn't get 5. If I have to trudge through most of a book, I probably won't even finish it so if I rate it at all, it would get a 1 star and I would say that it was so bad, I couldn't read the whole thing.
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Post by giatocj on Oct 20, 2014 15:50:07 GMT
I'm another who rates the whole book. Endings definitely do not make a break a book for me...the overall story does, and that is how my rating would be based.
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Post by bc2ca on Oct 20, 2014 15:59:21 GMT
I completely get your point of view. I haven't read The Maze Runner, so can't comment on that book, but agree that the first half of Code Name Verity would have earned maybe a 3/5 rating but the last half is absolutely 5/5. Based on the stength of the ending, I would absolutely recommend it to everyone and overall give it a 5/5, not a averaged rating of 4/5.
Another book I recently read would have earned a 5/5 for the first 3/4th of the book, but the ending was like reading an entirely different book (imagine watching 3/4th of The Help spliced with the last 1/4th of Transformers) so there is no way I would just drop the rating down 1 star. The disconnect between the majority of the book and the end would drop it down to a 2/5 and I am conflicted over whether to recommend the book at all.
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gottapeanow
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by gottapeanow on Oct 20, 2014 16:03:05 GMT
Thank you for all your thoughts and input. I see that I am clearly alone in my POV, but I don't mind. And I rate very few books on just the ending. Just books that I either loved the ending or hated the beginning. Or books where I hated the ending and loved the beginning. Maybe a better analogy to explain myself is this. If you're eating a delicious meal, and you find a hair in your food, the whole meal suddenly became bad. Again, I appreciate your input. Food for thought. Pun intended. Lisa |
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gottapeanow
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by gottapeanow on Oct 20, 2014 16:06:33 GMT
OMG, [HASH]bc2ca, someone agrees with me, thanks! Lol!
Yes, that was my exact point about CNV. The ending is soooo worth the slow start.
Lisa
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Post by BeckyTech on Oct 20, 2014 19:34:59 GMT
gottapeanow, since you now know that your rating system differs from most other people, would you do the rest of us a favor and be very explicit in your reviews that your rating is based almost solely how well you liked the ending of the book? Thank you.
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