Monday, December 15, 2014

What Happens When I Like a Book But Then I... Don't

This happened to me three different times. The first time I read a book, I really liked it. Like 4-5 stars. But then I read it again and saw flaws with it that I didn't see before. Flaws that I couldn't look past the second time. Or I'll be having a discussion with someone and they'll bring up a point that I never thought about and I get that feeling like "oh crap, I don't think I like this book quite as much as I think I did."

I used to be very generous with my ratings. If I didn't really like a book but I like the author, it still got 4 stars. I hardly handed out 2 stars and I never gave out 1 stars. I was scared to hurt feelings. I was scared of looking mean. But now I realize that I'm entitled to my opinions and I'll rate a book two stars if I thought it was horrible. I'll rate a book three stars if I enjoyed it but wouldn't go out of my way to purchase it or read it again.

So what do I do? Do I go back and fix my ratings to my true feelings or do I leave them as is? There was a book that I wasn't too fond of but I put it as 4 stars because I liked another book by the author. As soon as I realized I didn't actually like said book, I went back and changed my rating to three stars. Then I changed it to two. It's not even that the book changed. It's just that I wanted to be honest with my opinions and I changed my view on things.

But is changing a rating to a lower star just because I notice that the way the character always starts a sentence with "yeah no but"? (this is just an example) And how much do I mark down if I notice something that I never noticed before? One star? Half a star? Does it depend on how much I notice has changed? If there is a review, should I edit the review and say that my opinion changed and I lowered the rating?

With Goodreads, it's easy to change the rating but do I go through the hassle of changing the rating on everything else that I rate things on? Do I go through and edit the review that I have written in three different places? Am I really this lazy?

So let's talk: What do you do when this happens? Has this happened to you?