LipsticktoLiterature

When I first started my Bookstagram earlier this year I started writing reviews on the books I completed. I love talking about the books I’ve completed. Unfortunately, I don’t have many friends in my personal life who read let alone who read as much as I do. I started off the review by giving the book a star rating. I thought it would be a quick way for someone to see if I liked a book and they should pick it up/add it to their TBR (to be read) list or if it was a book they could skip if they had similar tastes as myself. After doing quite a few reviews, I noticed when I gave a 3 star review some people would post a comment along the lines of “I’m sorry you didn’t like this book” or “I hope the next book is better”. Just because a book received a 3-star review doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good book. It was still an enjoyable book! I still liked it! I’m glad I read the book. It just wasn’t a showstopper favorite of mine.

That’s when I realized that the star scale was a very subjective rating scale. I decided to change the way I
format my review. I wanted to point out all the good aspects of the book whether it was the author’s writing style or the character’s growth or the genre of the book, etc. I write a short review talking about what I liked and if there were parts of the book, I didn’t like I mention those as well.

Some people don’t want to read the whole blurb and just want to know if they should read the book or not. I
added a section titled “read this book if” where I mention at least 3 positive aspects of the book. I even use an
emoji that correlates with the plot or characters of the book. Just because I liked something about the book
doesn’t mean everyone will like it and vis versa something that I disliked might be someone’s favorite part of
the book. I want to get each and every book into the right reader’s hands. I want everyone to find a book they
enjoy reading!