It has occurred to me that after reviewing 52 books, I hadn’t yet taken the time to explain my rating scale. Indeed, at the end of every review, I give a score that ranges:

  • 👍👍 From BEST
  • 👍 … to
  • 👎 …
  • 👎👎 WORST

Let’s go more in detail about what each rating generally means to me:

  • Two thumbs down (👎👎) is something I would tell you to avoid. To me, it didn’t feel worth the time investment at all.
  • One thumb down (👎) is a good book that, as much as I wish I could recommend it to someone, there is probably another book I would recommend above it.
  • One thumb up (👍) is something I would feel safe recommending to most people.
  • Two thumbs up (👍👍) is something I couldn’t recommend enough. It deeply connected with me as a reader, and I think the world would be a better place if more people checked it out.

There are some special ratings you might see:

  • I wrote this (🙋🏻‍♂️), so I’m biased! You can easily recognize the books I wrote from their yellow spine in the bookshelf .
  • Still thinking about it (🤔), for some reason I didn’t feel comfortable giving a rating. That usually isn’t a good sign, though. 😅
  • Praying (🙏), a rating used for divine texts such as The Bible . This is me trying to be cute. You can probably interpret it as two thumbs up. 😉

I hope that clears things up!