Category Archives: Book Reviews

So what do those stars mean?

I was asked recently what my star ratings mean in book reviews, and so I thought I’d share the completely unscientific way I decide!

I track all the books I read on Goodreads, and did so before I started this blog, so for awhile I used the Goodreads star system to rate books. Goodreads star ratings are as follows:

  • 1 star = did not like it
  • 2 stars = it was ok
  • 3 stars = liked it
  • 4 stars = really liked it
  • 5 stars = it was amazing

When I started writing reviews, most authors asked me to post a review on Amazon as well as Goodreads and here at The Edifying Word. So I took a look at Amazon’s star ratings:

  • 1 star = I hate it
  • 2 stars = I don’t like it
  • 3 stars = it’s okay
  • 4 stars = I like it
  • 5 stars = I love it

So that’s confusing, right? I think I assigned different star ratings on each site for my very first review before deciding that I’m probably one of very few (nerdy) people who follow those exact definitions. I figure people probably have their own mental idea of what star ratings mean and interpret my ratings according to that scale…so, I just follow my own mental idea, which is something like this:

  • 1 star = I didn’t like it (I probably stopped reading)
  • 2 stars = it was “eh”
  • 3 stars = it was good enough/it taught me something
  • 4 stars = I liked it
  • 5 stars = I loved it!

If you take the opportunity to peruse my Goodreads shelves, you’ll see that the vast majority of traditionally published books that I read end up with 4 stars. It seems that so far, a lot of the self-published books I’ve read get 3 stars. Very, very few books at all get 5 stars; I’m kind of a tough audience. Reading this blog without following my ratings on Goodreads might also give you the impression that I never read a book I don’t like. That’s not true at all, but I intentionally choose not to write and publish reviews here at The Edifying Word for books that I rate 2 stars or fewer. I want this to be a positive place, and I’m not interested in trashing someone’s book, especially indie authors. I do, however, put up a star rating without a text review on Goodreads for everything I read.

So, that’s my story. I hope that clarifies things instead of muddling them!

Book Review: The Jacq of Spades

Indie author Patricia Loofbourrow offers The Jacq of Spades (The Red Dog Conspiracy) (Volume 1) as part 1 of a series she describes as “steampunk neo-noir,” which is a new genre for me. Like many of the books I’ve read recently, it’s a self-published debut novel and I’d say it falls about in the middle of the pack for me. The book takes place in the fictional city of Bridges, which is split into four sections, each “governed” by a crime family. The protagonist, Jacqueline Spadros, is the seemingly well-off and glamorous wife of a family heir but actually lives a restricted life under the microscopic watch of her father-in-law, who kidnapped her from “the pit” to marry his son. We see Jacqui manage her small-time private eye business as she investigates the disappearance of her deceased best friend’s little brother. As she investigates she becomes embroiled in a growing conspiracy in which a new gang, the Red Dogs, are framed for the kidnapping.

The story is engaging, as are the main characters as we follow their emotional growth. The story takes place against a backdrop of failed governance, powerful criminal enterprises, social and class divisions, and underlying social discontent with the status quo. As a former student of a sociology-based criminal justice program, I found some of the social, legal, and criminal discussions interesting and mostly on target. Ultimately, though, the story is an engaging mystery. I looked forward to reading it in the evening, and I still sometimes think about the characters, which means the author crafted a compelling story.

There were a couple of significant drawbacks for me, though. Firstly, there were occasions throughout the book where I just wasn’t sure I was following all the elements of the story correctly. Loofbourrow uses a sort of “flashback” technique, where we see instances from Jacqui’s past in italics. Through those flashbacks, we slowly piece together her history and how she got to her current position. On occasion I felt like those flashbacks were more confusing than enlightening, but the issue mostly sorts itself out by the end of the book. Secondly, I was dissatisfied by the end of the book because I felt like things were left unresolved. That may have been on purpose, though, since the book is designed to be the first in a series. I would assume that reading the second book, when it comes out, will shed more light on those unresolved elements.

Jacq of Spades is the first book with dark themes that I have read in a long time, because I intentionally avoided such stories for the past many years; I typically don’t like how I feel after reading about evil. I was generally entertained by the book despite the violence and dark themes, but I can’t say I learned anything from the story, which is my usual criterion for reading. I’m on the fence about whether I plan to read part 2, but I’ll probably be swayed in favor by my desire to find out what happens!

My star rating: 3 stars

Buy the book: The Jacq of Spades (The Red Dog Conspiracy) (Volume 1)

Author webpage: http://www.pattyloof.com/blog/

**Thank you to author Patricia Loofbourrow for providing a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: The Elephants of Style

Knowing that I’m doing freelance editing work, my good friend Stephanie gave me Bill Walsh’s The Elephants of Style : A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and Gray Areas of Contemporary American English as a Christmas gift. It’s a surprisingly easy read for a book about grammar, and I actually read the whole thing, cover to cover. Essentially, the book is meant to cover the gray areas of grammar, which Walsh calls the “elephants.” His goal is not to settle the ambiguity, but instead to “find a consensus on what doesn’t look stupid—at least for now” (xiv).

Some of his preferences offend my purist nature—for example, using “they” as a gender-neutral, singular pronoun instead of “he”—but I grudgingly take his larger point: written English evolves just as spoken English does. There isn’t an English-language authority as there is in other languages, and after a time it starts to look ridiculous to stick to outdated usages, even in writing. I don’t like it, but I think he’s right (grr).

The book is full of useful grammatical information, such as punctuation distinctions between American and British English and an explanation of when to use “due to” vs. “because of.” Most of Walsh’s recommended grammar “rules” follow practicality rather than long-held convention, but he occasionally goes the other way and rants against loosening standards too far. Rather than making him appear confused, I generally perceived his rants to be well-founded. For example, when he discusses the use of hyphens in compound modifiers (such as “real estate salesmen” vs. “real-estate salesmen,” which is technically correct), he complains that “a casual approach to compound modifiers robs the language of nuance” (133).

One drawback to the book for some readers may be Walsh’s emphasis on newspaper style conventions. He spends a lot of time talking about Associated Press style vs. Washington Post style vs. New York Times style and so on, and many of his text examples involve subjects typically covered in a newspaper. These sorts of things weren’t really useful to me, but they make sense given his history as an editor for the Washington Post. For me, it didn’t detract from the overall usefulness of the book.

I love precision of language. The Elephants of Style provides me with a balanced approach to writing and editing that allows me to seek that precision without appearing stilted and outdated, in a readable and sometimes humorous manner. Four stars!