Books, Dogs, and Other Blogs

Just a quick note on how I rate.  I use the standard 5 star system. 

5 stars are reserved for the books that had the most impact on me.  It can be hard to pull emotion out of me, so if a book can make me laugh out loud or cry, it's a good sign that it's on the way to 5 stars.  If I reach the last page, and immediately want to flip back to page 1, that's another good sign.

4 stars are for books that I really enjoyed. 

3 stars are for books that I liked.  Some borderline-meh books are here too.

2 stars are for books I didn't like, and also some borderline-meh.

1 star is for books I truly felt I would be better off never having read. 

I have a 100 page rule.  I'll give a book 100 pages to pull me in.  If it's not working for me in the first 100 pages, I feel fine in abandoning it.  I have a shelf for abandoned books, but I typically won't rate these.  Sometimes a book is slow to warm up, or is just the wrong book at the wrong time.  If I've got a lot going on in life and I'm looking for an escape, a heavy think piece is just not going to be something I could get into.  I will normally revisit my abandoned books and try again, and give proper ratings when I finish.

Also, I tend to not shelf books until I've read them, so the majority of books on my TBR can only be found there.