Stars

I thought I'd introduce a star system, to help us keep track of the good, the bad, and the ugly. For About a Boy I used the following: Plot: **** Fun: ***** Novelty: *** Overall: **** By Plot, I meant plot and character development. I don't really know how to distinguish between books, but all I want to make sure is that The Da Vinci Code doesn't end up with more than three stars overall - mainly because in my eyes it doesn't have any character development. By Fun, I wouldn't count the number of times the book made me laugh, although this is important too! It should more or less indicate to what extent you felt involved in the story, or in a crude way: was the book a waste of time or not? The Da Vinci Code is a tricky one in this perspective, as nothing was left to the reader's imagination, though it was a rather thrilling and educational story. By Novelty, I mean the uniqueness of the book. I guess this changes over time, as simple authors pick up on what's popular, but a good author will always be able to stand out in an overpopulated genre. I'd also include the complex subject of literature in this category. Has the book been influential, or do you think it should have been/should be? By Overall, I just average over the previous three, with a bias to the actual number of stars I think the book is worth. We could include another category, say Christ-like or something less cheesy, to indicate how we can relate a book to our faith, but I think it would be funny to do this in stars. Possibly, we could leave this to the comment section of each book, or include a footnote in the review. P.S. The it would be great if we could stick to five stars as the maximum, so that for the overall scores we can assume the following: * = The phone book would have been a better read. ** = If I weren't reviewing this I would probably forget about it; not great, but not for me. *** = There's nothing really wrong with it, but it's definitely not amazing. Just a good read. **** = Only one step from perfection. ***** = If everyone reads this book, the world will become a better place.