Why Don’t I Leave Reviews on Goodreads?

Aug 31

By Tia Hinz, M.Ed. M.A.

I have been asked this question before, and honestly, it’s a very valid one.

I listen to a lot of books. I talk about books constantly. I recommend books. I write about books. So why don’t I rate them on Goodreads?

Because, in my opinion, Goodreads ratings are as much for the author as they are for the reader.

And books are art.

Writing is a form of art. Storytelling is art. Someone created characters, built a world, chose every word, revised it approximately 47 billion times, and then put that creation into the world for strangers to experience.

And personally?

I will never publicly rate someone’s art less than five stars.

I know that rubs some people the wrong way.

And hey—feel your feels, my dude.

I’m not saying everyone should approach reviews this way. Reviews are useful. Critical discussion about literature is important. People should absolutely be able to talk about what worked and what didn’t work for them.

This is how I approach it.

If I don't like a book, my first thought usually isn't:

This was a bad book.

It's:

This book wasn't meant for me.

And there is a difference.

“But Then How Do I Know What You Actually Liked?”

I tried explaining this philosophy to a friend once.

They did not understand.

Which is fine.

I kept explaining.

They continued not understanding.

Eventually, they were completely fed up with me and said something along the lines of:

“Well, if you give everything five stars, how am I supposed to know which books you actually liked enough to recommend?”

...

Ask me.

😂

Seriously.

Ask me what you should read.

Please tell me what you're looking for.

Do you want queer fantasy? A thriller? Something weird? Witches? Mythology? Something that's going to destroy you emotionally? Something that will make you kick your feet? Something you can finish in a day?

I will find you something.

Because a number between one and five doesn't tell you whether you are going to connect with a piece of art.

Art Is Supposed to Make Us Feel Things

Art is subjective.

It's supposed to make you feel.

Think.

Love.

Hate.

Question.

Sometimes it's supposed to make you uncomfortable.

Sometimes you're going to finish a book and think it was one of the most beautiful things you've ever experienced, while the person sitting next to you couldn't get through chapter three.

Neither experience necessarily makes the book good or bad.

It means two humans experienced the same piece of art differently.

So I'm not going to give you my list of five-star books.

They're all five stars over there.

Instead, I'll give you something much more useful:

Five Books I Wish I Could Experience Again for the First Time

These are the books where knowing what happens is almost inconvenient because I desperately want that first time feeling again.

🏒 The Long Game — Rachel Reid

I do not love spicy books.

And yet this series has my entire heart.

What I love about this relationship is how much it feels like a partnership. There aren't many love stories I've read where the relationship feels so genuinely 50/50.

Neither person exists to save the other.

There's heartbreak, struggle, and pain outside their relationship, and I think Rachel Reid does such a beautiful job of navigating what it means to love someone through those things without making love magically fix everything.

The relationship isn't perfect.

It's a partnership.

And apparently that's the kind of romance that gets me.

🕵️ Lavender House — Lev A.C. Rosen

Really, I'm cheating here because I mean the entire Evander Mills series.

History. Queerness. Mystery.

Do I need to say more?

No.

Will I?

Obviously.

The series takes place in the 1950s, when being openly queer was dangerous, and it would have been very easy for these stories to focus exclusively on suffering.

But they don't.

There are pockets of queer joy everywhere.

Chosen family.

Compassion.

Empathy.

Community.

People finding ways to exist and love one another in a world that wasn't particularly interested in letting them.

And all of that is woven through genuinely compelling mysteries.

I want approximately 2,485,392,053,920 more Evander Mills books, please and thank you.

🧙 So Witches We Become — Jill Baguchinsky

I don't even know if I can completely explain why this story captivated me so much.

It just did.

Sometimes that's the best recommendation I can give a book.

I loved watching the sense of community form throughout the story. I loved the horror. I loved the anger. I loved the way the characters came together.

And I've apparently discovered something about myself through my reading:

I freaking love retellings.

Give me a story I think I know and then completely mess with it.

I'm there.

🌿 This Poison Heart — Kalynn Bayron

This series has my whole heart.

Honestly, it contains basically everything my brain wants from a story.

Poisonous plants.

Mythology.

Magic.

Finding yourself.

Family.

Queerness.

And a queer relationship that can exist.

The characters don't need to overcome their queerness. Their relationship doesn't need to be fixed. Queerness isn't treated as the problem the story needs to solve.

They get to be queer.

And then there are the plants.

Ohhhhh, the plants.

This book helped spark my fascination with poisonous flowers—their beauty, danger, history, mythology, and contradictions.

That fascination eventually became part of the inspiration behind the name Moonflower & Myth.

So yes.

This one is a little special to me.

No notes.

I love her.

👠 Cinderella Is Dead — Kalynn Bayron

Have I mentioned that I love a retelling?

Because apparently I really love a retelling.

Cinderella Is Dead takes a story practically everyone knows and asks:

Okay...but what happens when the fairy tale becomes the rulebook?

And y'all.

It's SO good.

What I particularly love is the way it explores power, gender, expectations, and control without feeling like someone stopped the story to give you a lecture about them.

The commentary is inside the world.

You experience it through the characters and the society they live in.

It takes something familiar and makes you question why you've accepted the original story's rules in the first place.

And THAT is exactly what I want from a retelling.

So, No. I Still Don't Have a Rating for You.

If you want to know whether a book is worth reading, I'm probably never going to be the person who says:

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5

But I will tell you:

This book made me stare at the wall.

This one made me download the sequel immediately.

This one wasn't for me, but I know exactly who would love it.

This one made me rethink something.

This one made me feel seen.

And sometimes:

I would give anything to experience this book again for the first time.

That's the kind of book review I want to write.

Because books are art.