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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9611327" data-attributes="member: 18">The problem with going by Amazon and Goodreads ratings is that virtually all fantasy novels that are in the "mediocre to insanely brilliant" range have scores of 4.X, where X is randomly anywhere between 0 and 7. Occasionally they might hit 3.9 or even 3.8, usually only if they're "challenging" in some way (whether that's high reading level required, problematic content, or w/e varies widely).There's no consistency or apparent logic to it. The Book of the New Sun, which is written so insanely brilliantly that it's been suggested by serious critics that it might be one of the best pieces of English writing in the 20th century, and which is very much multi-layered and has incredible prose, has a 4.23 on Goodreads.  Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas, which is a fairly generic and forgettable "teenage assassin" story with a basic-ass Twilight-style romantic subplot, by no means a terrible book, but certainly not an amazing one, has 4.18 on Goodreads, which is basically the same score!The idea that most star ratings on Amazon and Goodreads actually correlate to  any kind of quality or potential popularity in any way at all is obviously pretty silly. They don't even correlate to size of audience! Something with a very niche audience may actually have much higher ratings than something with a broader audience. Indeed, when something which is, essentially, niche is brought to a wider audience, you do tend to see ratings drop (albeit usually still into the 3.8 to 4.7 range).So I think you have to discount those ratings unless they're outside the 3.8 to 4.7 range, in which case you might want to look into why. I don't think that, realistically, you're any more likely to like or be impressed by a book that gets 4.4 on Goodreads than one that gets 4.2, for example.</blockquote>

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