What Makes a 5 Star Read? ~ What I Look For in a Good Book

Hey, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. I’ve seen this discussion topic floating around for a while and I decided to do it as well with my own thoughts on it.

Rating books is hard to do. I spend a lot of time figuring out what I should rate a book. 3 or 3.5? 4 or 4.5? 3.5 or–okay, I think you get my point.

So, today, I’m going to talk about the main factors that I look at for rating books I’ve read. What makes a 5 star read?

Enjoyment

Ignoring everything else in this post, how much I enjoyed a book probably influences my ratings the most. Luckily, a lot of the books I’ve been reading have been a lot of fun to read, and I’ve liked them.

A good example is One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus. The book was full of stereotypical high school students, but I still enjoyed reading it. I liked the mystery around Simon’s death and how all the characters had to find out who killed him. The storyline was extrememly unrealistic, but it was still a really good book.

Characters

First of all, characters; they’re a main factor in my decision process. I mean, the whole book is about them! They need to be realistic, with strengths, flaws, quirks, etc. If they’re absolutely perfect, then they’re not really human. And I probably won’t like them. I want to read a book where I really care about the characters. If I don’t care about them, then the book won’t be as interesting to me and/or I’ll be annoyed the whole time. Especially if the characters are perfect, and annoying.

Now, the characters don’t have to be likeable (though I prefer that) but I have to like them. Or at least tolerate them. It makes the story a whole lot better. For example, let’s take Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. At the beginning, Snape seems like he’s going to be a huge annoyance to Harry and his friends (which he is), and nothing else. But as the books continue on, Snape does things that are considered heroic and villainous. That’s what makes him such an interesting character; you can’t predict what he’s going to do next.

Another thing is character arch. If a character has the exact same point of view on something at the beginning of the story, and the end, then it doesn’t really feel like anything changed. This especially goes for main characters. However, if a character changes and grows during the story, then I’ll most likely enjoy the story more.

Plot and Pacing

I’m not too reliant on the plot of the book. Some books don’t really have a plot, or there isn’t a huge climax during the story. I’m okay with these kind of books, as long as something happens that will keep me interested in the story. A few years ago, I read Signs of You by Emily France. The book was character-driven, but I was still thoroughly engaged in the story.

Pacing also is a key part. If a plot is too slow, it feels dragged out, and I’ll probably get bored easily. On the other hand, if the plot is too fast, it feels rushed and not thought out as well. In Wizard’s Hall by Jane Yolen, everything was too fast and there wasn’t a lot of room for exposition. There wasn’t enough time to build up the stakes and increase the tension. I think that if there had been more time to set up the story and get to know the characters, I would’ve liked the story a lot better.

Writing & POV

Writing style isn’t a huge part of my rating, but I still add it in. Lyrical and flowery writing is something that can be done really well, and other times, it’s kind of a mess. In The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, the writing was perfect. It was very lyrical and poetic, without the descriptions being dragged out. Well, maybe they were a little long sometimes, but the scenes were basically painted out for me.

Another thing is character perspective. I tend to read first person POV more than third, which makes character voice really important, especially if there’s multiple characters narrating. I don’t want to have to go back to the beginning of a section to see which character is narrating.

Uniqueness

This is something that I don’t focus a whole lot on, but it’s still something I look at. Every story is unique in it’s own way and has an original plot. What I mean by uniqueness is like how an author uses certain words or phrases, or maybe how the book is designed. For example, in The Key to Extraordinary by Natalie Lloyd, the first page of every chapter is designed like it’s a piece of paper ripped from a notebook. I thought it looked cool; it was different from what you normally see.

Uniqueness doesn’t mean I rate a book lower. If there isn’t anything that caught my eye in the book, then the rating doesn’t change because of it. Those small differences in books are just something I enjoy finding and they might influence the rating.

How do you rate books you’ve read? Have you read any 5 star books recently?
Chat with me in the comments below!