Whenever I read something (novels, manga, etc; really anything that I track in Calibre), I always rank it on a five-star scale to indicate that I’m done with it. I know some people like to use half-stars or even hundred-point scales and I’ve always found that to be too granular for something which is ultimately not really all that objective or scientific.
The main purpose of this scale is to help me a way to help me decide whether to continue a series, recommend it to friends, etc. I’m posting it here so I can link to it in other posts where it might be relevant.
Without further ado…
★★★★★
Very enjoyable. I’ll be proactively continuing the series if possible, and will wholeheartedly recommend it to my friends. Just because I rate something five stars doesn’t mean it’s “the best of the best”; in fact, most of the manga I’ve read is actually rated five stars just because I rarely continue reading things if I’m not enjoying them a lot.
★★★★☆
Quite good. I might not run right out to continue the series, but chances are high that I’ll be back at some point. Gets a solid recommendation, occasionally with some mild caveats.
★★★☆☆
Middle-of-the-road. No clear choice as for whether I will or won’t continue. In some cases, where I feel the concept is strong but the delivery is lacking, I might give this as a provisional rating and continue the series to see if it improves. More so than the other ratings, three stars is best taken in context of the whole series, to show whether my enjoyment is increasing or decreasing with each entry. If I’m asked for a recommendation, I’ll probably say something like “it’s worth a try to see if you like it.”
★★☆☆☆
Will almost definitely not be continuing, and will certainly not be paying to do so. On a few rare occasions, (usually because I had the next volume in my library already, or had a chance to get it for free), I’ve seen certain series redeem themselves and go on to get three-star ratings. However, a two-star rating that follows a three-star rating is almost guaranteed to be the end of the line.
★☆☆☆☆
Under no circumstances will I be continuing with the series. At the time of writing, with nearly 400 books logged on bookmeter, I’ve only given out one one-star rating. I’ll only pull this one out for a work so utterly charmless that that any redeeming qualities it may have are not enough to make it worth reading. If I rate something one-star, it’s because I can say with zero irony “just the fact that it exists offends me, and the time I spent with it was a complete waste.”