Guest Post: How Many Stars by Mary Lee Tiernan

Today we are going to hear from Mary Lee Tiernan. She agreed to do a guest post for us. YAY! Here is her bio:

Mary Lee was born and raised in New York. After graduating from NY State University New Paltz, she heeded that voice which said, “Go West, young woman, go west,” and headed to California where she received her Masters degree in literature from Cal State LA. During her professional career, she moved from being a teacher to librarian to journalist, but enjoys being a novelist the most.

Over the years, Mary Lee has traveled through the United States, Europe, and Asia. Here in the States, she likes to explore the open spaces in the West and can often be seen traveling down the road in her RV with her two cats, Charlie and Hobie.

Mystery/suspense/thriller genres top her list of favored reading and most of her novels fall into those categories. Her most popular Mahoney and Me Mystery Series adds a bit of romance and animal antics to basic detective stories.

Her new series, Dreams Untangled, adds a twist to her favored genres. On the surface, the first novel in the series, Silent Ending, seems to be a romance, but the reader is quickly aware that trouble is brewing underneath Maddie’s November romance. Silent Ending has just hit the market and can be found on Amazon.

The second book in the series, Waking Up Crazy, is currently a nominee in the Kindle Scout competition. You could support her by nominating the book at this link and possibly win a free copy from Kindle. https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/3CHU2TPNJ7KZA/

More information about Mary Lee’s books is available on her website https://www.maryleetiernan.com

or an her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00IPGR1SA

Blurb: Maddie wakes up in a nightmare worse than any she ever dreamt in her sleep. She finds herself in a sanitarium, not knowing how she got there or why she’s there. Torturous weeks pass by as she tries to climb out of the black hole in her memory and piece her life back together. But most of all, most important of all, she wants to find Luke despite the lies she’s been told about him.

How Many Stars?

Most of us went to school in the U.S. and are familiar with the grading system of A through F. A’s and B’s on our report cards left us smiling as we proudly showed such good grades to our parents. On the other hand, reports including D’s and F’s wiped the smiles from our faces. Bad grades often resulted in repercussions we’d have preferred to avoid. But what happened if our grades fell in the middle? The good, old C; neither good nor bad; just average. Our parents may have expressed their desire that we work a little harder, but for most kids, C grades are accepted without any dire consequences.

When I turn to a 5-star system, rather than letters, I tend to equate the same values to the stars. 5 or 4 stars, like A’s and B’s, mean the book is good, above average. How good, the 4 or 5, is mostly a subjective evaluation by the reviewer. On the lower end, 2 or 1 star equates to a D or F. Most people will agree that a 1 or 2 star rating means the book has some major problems, whether it be grammatical or spelling errors that interfere with the reading, a plot that doesn’t flow smoothly, cardboard characters or stiff dialogue, etc. Again, the choice of a 1 or 2 star is subjective depending on how serious a problem is or how many problems the reader encountered.

That leaves the average, mediocre, so-so books. The book you read that didn’t have any major problems, but it wasn’t all that interesting, and you wouldn’t particularly recommend it to anyone else. For me, that naturally falls between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad.’ It’s a C or 3 stars.

Many people disagree with me and consider a 3 star rating as ‘good.’ If that were so, it means that all books are either good or bad. Does that make sense? Isn’t there a place on the scale for those average, okay books?

A reader should be aware that a star rating does not mean the same to all reviewers. When I see 3 star ratings that include comments such as ‘Good book, Well-written, or I really enjoyed it,’ I think there’s a discrepancy between the star rating and the comments.

Readers should consider the comments as well as the star ratings when choosing a book to read. You don’t want to eliminate a good book just because of the number of stars. Reviews that justify a rating with reasons why the reviewer rated the book as good or bad or average help. A comment like ‘Great book’ or ‘Don’t waste your money’ doesn’t tell me anything about the book. Opinions are formed on some basis; I like to know what that basis is.