The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Billy @ Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to their own blog.
Question:
Do the star ratings a book receives on Goodreads or retail sites affect whether you buy the book or not?
(submitted by Flora @ Flora’s Musings…)
Answer:
First, this question comes from a wonderful book blogger that I follow, so I encourage you to click on the link in the question and check out Flora’s lovely site.
Now on to my answer to the question: To be honest, if I actually buy a book, it is often by authors who I have been reading for years, and I preorder it before it even has any stars. Occasionally, a see a book from blog posts or Instagram that intrigues me, and with those books I look at stars but more importantly, I look at what reviewers say. I check out some high star ratings and some low star ratings and can usually get a good feel about whether I will like the book from that.
If I am in doubt but still intrigued, I just get it from the library. And stars do not matter for that path 🙂
Do star ratings impact whether you buy a book or not?
I like to include a picture so here is a collage of my more recent book purchases:
Tessa Talks Books 
Reviews are always a good way to go! People have different opinions after all 🙂
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When I look at reviews done after I read and review a book myself – there are some books out there that I wonder if they read the same book as me but usually reviews are pretty honest albeit subjective.❤️
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Um… no, they don’t make me want to read a book or stop me from reading something.
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They are just so subjective, it’s hard to tell from them many times.
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Exactly.
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I’m personally not bothered by star ratings but I definitely take on board what people say if I’m on the fence about something. What people write is more important than how they rate as the ratings are too subjective, imo. 🙂
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I completely agree!
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Star rating are super arbitrary, but good to help you find different types of reviews on Goodreads. I like to read some of the good and bad reviews just to get a feel for a book if I’m not sure about it. If I know I am going to read a book because I love the author, or it’s something I feel like I need to read, I don’t care what others say. Great post!
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Thank you and I totally agree! ❤️
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Not most of the time. Only really if I’m undecided about a book anyway do I check the ratings!
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There is definitely only a few ways to gather info if you are not sure about a book and rating is one 😊
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Star ratings tend to only have a little influence on me, if I like the synopsis but the rating is particularly low then I’ll read a few reviews and see why it was rated as such then make a decision, I definitely think the reviews have more impact the star ratings usually just guide me to the reviews 😊💜 Great post, and great answer!
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Thank you! ❤️
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💜You’re welcome!💜
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I am more interested in a person’s thoughts on a book than the ratings too. And like you, I like to look at a cross-section of reviews/ratings to get a better idea of a book I may be on the fence about.
Have a good weekend and stay safe.
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Even when I give stars, I feel like they are kind of arbitrary (to a certain degree). I often waffle between star-ratings, which is why I ended up changing how I rate books on this blog. I created ratings that much more align with how I think about books.
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Thanks for answering my question, Tessa and for saying such lovely things. 🙂
If it’s a new-to-me author, star ratings play a part in my decision whether to buy the book or not but, like most bookworms, it’s more about the reviews, thoughts and comments for me. 💜😊
I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, Tessa, stay safe and healthy.
Flora x
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I know we all have different criteria for assigning stars but if you really want to know what I think about a book, it’s important to read what I say about it and even notice what I’m not saying ❤️ Have a great week and be well!
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Yeah, ferreting out the information needed to decide whether a book is worth me spending my hard earned money on has almost become second nature. 😘
Hope your week is going well, Tessa. X
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Oh My Gash – Rise of Magicks is amazing. Really glad to find a fellow Nora lover. I honestly believe that this last trilogy is some of her best work.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the question 🙂
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I am definitely a lover of most all she has written, especially the series that have a large fantasy element ❤️. She has a new fantasy based series in the works. Book 1 comes out in the fall, I think!
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Oh my – now you have me terribly excited!
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