Do You Change Ratings? | Discussion

I recently went through my “read” list in Goodreads, and while I was looking through the books I’ve read, I had several sudden impulses to change my ratings—I thought a few deserved an extra star, some I wanted to take away a star. These books were ones that I had written reviews for, in which I was quite positive with my feelings about them, which begs the question: should I change the rating? If so, wouldn’t this really override my original thoughts on this book?

Usually, when I finish reading a book, I immediately write my review. I do this because of a few reasons.

One: I have a bad memory, so if I write my review right after I read the book, it’s likely that I’ll have more insightful things to say.

Two: I’m trying not to procrastinate, and/or I have to submit my review to a publisher.

But I’ve found that writing reviews immediately after reading has a few problems. Well, first of all, I can change my initial thoughts, which include instances of “this book has lost its initial charm on me and I might take away that one star”s, and “I actually can’t stop thinking about this book and I’m going to add another star and no one can stop me (or can they)”s. And also, there’s really no room to take in what I read and mull over it a few days.

This brings about a few questions as well. Would it be better to write reviews right after reading a book? Or would it be better to write the review after a few days or a week so I can really understand my feelings for this book?

Which brings up another point. If I review a book a few days after I read it, does that mean my initial thoughts are invalid or need to be corrected? I know many bloggers/reviews include an “initial thoughts” portion of their review, but I don’t know how I feel about that. Yes, it’s interesting to see how thoughts can progress or regress regarding overall feelings of the book, but if this is a book that’s reviewed for a publisher, how might that change the submissions of reviews?

I’m actually super conflicted about this. I read this one book that I thought was pretty okay, a 3.5/5 (or 4/5 I can’t remember) star one that I reviewed right after reading, but after a few days, I realized that I loved it more than I realized; I wanted (still want, actually) to change it to a 5/5 star book. But the problem is, I still want to keep my initial review and thoughts but I’m not sure how I can change the rating without sacrificing my objectivity during my reviewing process. I’m still thinking about how to approach this problem, but in the meantime, I’m totally welcoming any thoughts to help me solve it!

So how about you? I know this is a really open topic and I really didn’t have an argument of any kind, but have you ever been in a situation like this? What did you do? What should I do about that one book I want to bump up a star? Or what would you do if you wanted to take a star away after further consideration? Let me know in the comments!