Let’s Talk Bookish: Is 3 Stars a “Good” Rating?

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, that is hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books and Dani @ Literary Lion, where each week we have a discussion prompt to write about (very helpful for when you’re in a slump hahah!). This is my first time joining and this weeks prompt is “Is 3 Stars a ‘Good’ Rating?”.

For some background info here is my rating system:

• 5 stars – This book is going to be my next obsession for the next few YEARS. Everything was phenomenal, and there was barely anything I had a problem with. I couldn’t put this book down!
• 4 stars – This book was great! I really enjoyed it, and it was thrill reading it. There might have been a few things I didn’t like, but it was very minimal.
• 3 stars – It was good (which I will get into later on)
• 2 stars – This book was really disappointing , would not recommend. I probably had a million WTF moments while reading it.
• 1 star – It’s going in the donation pile. Not worth anyone’s time or money.

To be honest at times I consider the 3 star rating as sort of the “middle child” of the ratings. It’s not as extravagant as 4 or 5 stars, and not nearly as scandalous as 1 or 2 stars. It’s just there. I see a lot of people list 3 stars as “meh” in their rating system, and I sort of disagree.

To me, three starts represent a good book. It means I enjoyed the book, and I would recommend the books if they are looking for something too read. However, it’s not exactly a memorable book. And this is probably a me thing, but I forget books just as much as I read books. And I read a lot. So if I give a book three stars, chances are I’ll probably forget about what happened within a year or so.

Also there are so many factors that decide my rating in a book. The three main factors are: plot, characters, and writing style. But out of those three I’d say the most important is characters. Having a three star rating means that none of these three factors really impressed me. The writing was basic, the characters were not that vibrant, but enjoyable, and the plot was ok. But it was satisfactory.

Three stars is also just so dependable to me. Whenever I’m not sure too give a rating to a novel I usually give it just three stars. Sometimes books are not deserving of a four stars, but they’re definitely nowhere as bad as a two star. That’s why three stars are just so handy.

I noticed that I give a lot of over-hyped books three stars and for that I blame my high expectations. When hyped books aren’t as great as people say, but still good it’s deserving of a three stars.

Basically to wrap things up, if I were an author and I saw a rating on my book that said three stars, I would be good. It’s not the best, but at least the rating didn’t get any lower than that.

This post was so easy to write, and I hoped it made sense! What does a three star rating mean to you? Is it good or bad? If you were an author, and someone rated your book three stars would you be disappointed? What are some titles that got three stars for you? Let me know, and if you participated in this meme please link your post so I can check it out!