My Rating System

All of our reviews are rated out of five. (Five what? Five elephants, five bananas, five glasses of wine, doesn’t matter… but we’ll assume five stars.) I see a lot of book reviewers giving everything four or five whatevers stars, while I give a lot more three-out-of-fives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean something bad!

Here’s how Just Love breaks it down:

1/5: This book was not very good. At all. I finished it, but it was a struggle
for one reason or another, and I do not recommend this book.

2/5: This book was not especially good, but had some aspects that I enjoyed.
I may or may not recommend it, depending.

3/5: This book was good, but not amazing. There were a few aspects that were
lacking, or that negatively impacted the reading experience. Recommended.

4/5: This book was great. It was entertaining, and I really loved reading it.
Interesting characters, captivating plot, and well-written. Definitely would
recommend!

5/5: This book was amazing! A five-out-of-five means this book left me
thinking after I finished the last page, or left me emotionally compromised.
Highly recommended.

Sometimes a book doesn’t fall neatly into these definitions, so you’ll occasionally see a 3.5 (read as: a great book, but with one or two things that I didn’t enjoy) or the like. On sites like Amazon, Goodreads, and NetGalley, the review will decide to round up or down on a per-book basis.