The Goodreads Was Wrong Book Tag | Tag Thursdays

I saw this first on Literary Weaponry’s blog. You can see their post here. It was originally posted on Way Too Fantasy‘s blog. It seemed like it would be a fun exercise, so I’ve done the tag here for my blog, as well. I hope you enjoy!

What is the Highest Rated Book That You Gave a Low Rating?

Sort your books in Goodreads based on Average Ratings and find the highest rated book you gave a low rating

Average Rating: 4.58/5 | My Rating: 2/5

So, in some ways, this rating is strictly personal to me and really has nothing to do with the writing of the book or it’s plot. It’s mostly because my favorite character was killed off for no reason. I love the first book in this duology (Six of Crows) and I loved this book, too…until Bardugo took it upon herself to kill my favorite character. I swore off all Bardugo books after this, but I have broken this vow to read The Ninth House for a book club. But in my heart I can never forgive Bardugo for this transgression. I feel no shame in this.

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What is the Lowest Rated Book That You Gave a High Rating?

Sort your books in Goodreads based on Avg Ratings, in reverse order, and find the lowest-rated book you gave a high rating

Average Rating: 3.39/5 | My Rating: 5/5

So, this book isn’t exactly a low, low rating, but this is the first book I came across of the books that I’ve read where there was a wide gap between my high rating and a low average rating. I love this book, and I know it’s a polarizing one, which may be the reason for it’s middle-of-the-road average rating. But, I really love what Arnold has done with this book and I recommend it to people all the time. I talk about it on this blog all the time. Definitely a great fantasy novel with a powerful message.

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What is the Most Popular Book You Disagree With the Avg Rating?

Sort your books in Goodreads based on the number of Ratings, and find the first book you disagree with the avg rating

Average Rating: 4.08/5 / # of Ratings: 2,459,578 | My Rating: 2/5

I know people love this book, it’s true, but I just…don’t care for it. It’s a decent mystery/thriller, but it falls into a certain category for me that mystery/thrillers often fall into: no likeable characters. I just don’t enjoy books about characters that are so morally grey that you can’t really like them. Both the main characters are despicable people and I didn’t care what happened to either of them. I didn’t even bother to see the movie when it came out. Just not a fun read, for me.

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What is the Least Popular Book You Disagree With the Avg Rating?

Sort your books in Goodreads based on the number of Ratings, in reverse order, and find the first book you disagree with the avg rating

Average Rating: 3.27/5 / # of Ratings: 583 | My Rating: 4/5

Again, I don’t really have too many books that I’ve read where my rating differs greatly from the average. This book, though, I think should have a higher rating, if only because it’s so fascinating, and important! In the current climate of conspiracy theories running rampant, this book, I think, should be required reading! I learned a lot about conspiracy theory and how to handle conspiracy theorists from this book. It’s a great read and you will be turning pages! You’ll be surprised at very crazy things people will believe in (including lizard people living in the sewers).

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Choose Two Books That Have an Average Rating of 3/5 Stars But You Gave a Higher Rating

Average Rating: 3.39 | My Rating: 5/5

Again, this book is one of the only ones I’ve read that has a close to average of 3/5 and I gave a higher rating. I really do love this book and I am happy to promote it again!

Average Rating: 3.34 | My Rating: 4/5

I actually read this book a long time ago, but I have fond memories of it. I picked it up after browsing the library shelves and it sounded interesting.

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Choose Two Books That Have an Average Rating of 3/5 Stars But You Gave a Lower Rating

Average Rating: 3.30 | My Rating: 1/5

So, this is a picture book that I came across at work and I was floored by how inappropriate it is for children. I really believe this book is geared more toward an adult audience than children, but I don’t think it’s being marketed that way. I mean, it was in the children’s section in my library! I don’t know why the rating for this book is so high because it’s truly a terrible book. I not only despise the illustrations, but the story is just very bizarre and upsetting in many ways.

Average Rating: 3.27 | My Rating: 2/5

I know there isn’t a big difference between these ratings, but I just did not enjoy this book and I don’t think it deserves an average 3-star rating. It’s not very well written, but what truly makes it terrible is the ending. It’s just not good. I don’t know how the movie fares, but if it’s anything like the book, it’s probably a not good either. I don’t think I’d want to read anything else by this author, that’s how much I didn’t like it.

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Choose Two Books That Have an Average Rating of 4/5 Stars But You Gave a Lower Rating

Average Rating: 4.00 | My Rating: 1/5

I…don’t know why this book has an average 4-star rating. I read it a while back and, yes, I did pick it up initially based on the title. I mean – it sounds intriguing! It’s a book of poetry, but I just didn’t enjoy any of the poems. My review of it was brief, so I’ll just quote myself here: “This is the kind of poetry that validates people saying they don’t like poetry because they can’t understand it. I love poetry, but this is the kind of poetry that is too close to the absurd for my taste. I need a little more grounding in realism for me to really get/enjoy it. Yuck.”

Average Rating: 4.01 | My Rating: 1/5

I only read this book because it was a pick for Emma Watson’s Goodreads book club. If I were on my own, I never would have picked it up. But since I did, I can say that I really did not enjoy this book. Again, it’s very abstract, which is just not my thing. I didn’t enjoy the writing at all. It felt more like a thesis paper than a memoir and the reading just wasn’t enjoyable. I don’t know why it has such a high rating. I guess everyone else has a higher tolerance for non-linear, very dry writing.

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Choose Two Books That Have an Average Rating of 2/5 Stars But You Gave a Higher Rating

I only have one book that has an average rating of 2 stars and I actually didn’t give it a star rating. I guess I tend to only read books with decent ratings.

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Do You Tend to Agree or Disagree With GR Average Rating and Do You Use GR as a Guide for Books You Want to Read?

I guess, having now gone through my ratings and compared them with average GR ratings extensively for this tag, I can say that my ratings don’t usually stray too far from the average GR rating. I mean, I tend to rate things very middle-of-the-road, unless a book really wows me or I dislike it immensely.

That being said, I definitely don’t use GR to guide my reading. Often their recommendations based on what I’ve read are so weird and inaccurate that I can’t even understand what their algorithm is doing. But despite that, I very rarely take into account the average rating of a book on GR when I’m debating reading a book. Most books on my TBR end up there due to other book blogging reviews or because they’re by an author I know and love, or I read about the book from a book review mag.

Thoughts & Thanks

Though I like participating in tags, I’m bad at tagging people. My favorite thing is just to say, if you’ve read this post and like it, please consider yourself tagged! And feel free to share your Tag post in the comments so I can see what you picked.

As always, thank you for visiting and happy reading!