At Books-a-Pound each book is weighed after the review. There is the overall weight and sub-weights. The overall weight is the experience rating. It shows how much I enjoyed the book overall, and is measured in Pounds of Enjoyment or POEs (i.e. 6 is 6 pounds of enjoyment). Sub-weights (they lack units) are my opinions on different aspects of the book, specifically the characters, plot and enthralling/engrossing/gripping factor or how much the book pulled me in or flowed. Remember that my musings and weights are made entirely of my own opinions about each book.
Overall Weight: in POEs
0: Did not finish, nuff said
1: Kill it with fire! How and why were you published?
2: Give me back the time I spent on you so I can read something else
3: Gag, this is barely literature
4: Appallingly painful, and more painful because it had some good points yet it still failed
5: Meh, didn’t love or hate it… didn’t really care about it
6: Some blunders and stumbled but generally acceptable
7: Wonderful! I really liked it
8: Awesomely marvelous
9: Perfectly magnificent and a smashing success
10: BRILLIANT! Above and beyond perfection! You are godly!
7-10 POEs are good reviews and books that I loved and recommend
5-6 POEs are OK books
1-4 POEs are bad books that I didn’t enjoy reading. (It’s rare that I give these because I usually enjoy all books I read to some degree, and if I don’t enjoy a book I start reading another book and gradually stop reading the bad one rather than finishing it, which is 0 POEs.)
Sub-Weights: 1 is light and 5 is heavy
1: hated it
2: didn’t like it
3: it was OK
4: liked it
5: loved it
This system came about because I felt that simply posting a review and giving a single number rating failed to properly express the nuances of my feelings towards a book. It was to hard for me to balance and express my overall experience and my opinion on specifics in the ratings. I could have totally loved a book and read it in 6 hours but certain things needed to be expressed that, while there, didn’t subtract from my enjoyment but felt more like musings on possible improvements. A single number wouldn’t express that hence the creation of this system.