Goodreads half and quarter stars

Earlier this week, Goodreads announced that readers will now be able to give half-star and quarter-star ratings. I applaud them for listening to their users and offering a feature that many people have asked for. 

Personally, I don't think the new rating system will affect how I rate books. I like having only five options (and in reality, I only use 3-, 4-, and 5-star ratings). It's easy enough for me to decide whether a book is a 5-star read vs. a 4-star read, or whether it's a 4-star read or a 3-star read. It'll be more difficult to decide between 4 and 4.5 stars or between 4.5 and 5 stars. I can't imagine trying to decide between quarter stars. What makes a book 4.5 stars vs. 4.75 stars? I'd rather keep things simple and round to the nearest whole number. :-)

It will be interesting to see how many people take advantage of the new rating capabilities. What will this do to the average ratings for books? Will people who would previously have given a 5-star rating to a book now give it 4.5 or 4.75 stars instead?

Do you plan to use half and quarter stars on Goodreads? 

When a favorite author misses for me

When an author has published a lot of books, it's natural that some are better than others. However, it still surprises me when I read a book from one of my favorite authors that ends up being disappointing. I ran into this recently with a book from one of my top five favorite authors. Until that book, I rated almost everything I read from the author as five stars, with the occasional four-star read that was good but not great by their lofty standards. I gave the new book three stars. If the author's name wasn't on the cover, I wouldn't have known they were involved.

At first, I felt guilty for not liking the book, as if disliking one book was a betrayal of everything else I've loved from that author. I even tried to find aspects of the book that I enjoyed as I struggled through it. 

The experience reminded me of a few points to keep in mind as a reader:

• Separate the book from the author - One miss doesn't negate a backlist I already love. It's OK to say a specific book didn't work for me without it affecting my opinion of the author as a whole.
• No book is universally loved - Most books are not objectively good or bad. Plenty of other readers may love a book I dislike and vice versa. 
• The bar is higher because the author is a favorite - Ironically, being a big fan can make me a harsher critic. I've read enough of this author's works to expect a higher bar than I would from other authors, so it's more noticeable when a book doesn't meet those high standards.
• It doesn't have to sour the next book - Recognizing that I didn't enjoy one book from the author doesn't mean writing off whatever they publish next. In fact, I plan to devour their next book.

One thing I'd also add is to go in with tempered expectations when a favorite author collaborates with someone else because the book that disappointed me was co-written by my favorite author and another writer I'm unfamiliar with. The blend of two people's voices won't produce the same result as a solo work, and I should have expected that from the start.

Has this happened to you with one of your favorite authors? How did you deal with it when a book from someone you love missed the mark for you?

Books about authors

I recently read The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke and thoroughly enjoyed it. Much of the appeal was because the story's main characters were authors, and I realized how much I enjoy reading books that feature authors as protagonists.

I went through my Goodreads history to find my favorite books from the last ten years where a main character was a writer. Here are my top five, sorted by author's last name:

• Book Lovers - Emily Henry
• The Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz
• The Plot - Jean Hanff Korelitz
• Yellowface - R.F. Kuang
• The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware

Having finished reading The Ending Writes Itself, I would now include it among my top five. 

Noticeably absent from the list is perhaps the most famous book featuring an author as a protagonist, Stephen King's Misery. It's not excluded because it was published more than ten years ago but because I haven't read Misery yet. Now that I'm aware of how much I like books where a main characters is an author, I'm going to add Misery to my TBR list.

Are there any books with author protagonists that you recommend?

Update on 2026 reading goal

Last year, I made it a point to make more progress in reading book series. It went so well that I repeated the goal this year. 

The series books I've read so far this year (in the order I read them) were:

• Three Shattered Souls - Mai Corland
• A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness
• Carl's Doomsday Scenario - Matt Dinnaman
• Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
• A Storm of Swords - George R.R. Martin
• Shadow of Night - Deborah Harkness
• Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb
• Jade City - Fonda Lee
• Lord of Chaos - Robert Jordan
• The Book of Life - Deborah Harkness
• Jade War - Fonda Lee

I did a good job following the plan I laid out in February. :-) 

Of the eleven books, I rated six of them 5 stars, two were 4 stars, and I gave 3 stars to the remaining three. The 4.27 average is far above my overall average rating for the books I read, so this reading goal is another success so far in 2026. I'm excited to continue with this plan and look forward to the other series books I'll read the rest of the year.

Recent books that were surprisingly good (or not so good)

As someone who reads about 100 books on average in a year, it's natural that I'll come across ones that were better than I thought they would be and ones that were worse.

Here are three books I recently read that I enjoyed more than I expected to:

• Jade City by Fonda Lee - The Green Bone Sage has been on my TBR for years, but I've avoided reading it because I'm not a fan of stories about mob families. In the case of Jade City, I was wrong. Although there are violent elements in the book, it was much more engaging than I expected. It's one of the best books, if not the best one, that I've read this year!
• Play Nice by Rachel Harrison - I read the occasional horror story, and they are hit or miss. I didn't expect much going into Play Nice, but it ended up being one of my favorite haunted house books.
• Camino Island by John Grisham - I'm a fan of John Grisham's legal thrillers but not so much his books in other genres, so I didn't have high expectations for Camino Island. This book turned out to be more interesting than I thought it would be, and it helped that the plot involved a book. :-)

On the other hand, these books didn't live up to my expectations:

• Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros - I bought into the hype when Fourth Wing came out, and I liked the first book in the Empyrean series. However, my opinion of each successive book has declined, and I'm not sure if I will continue with this series.
• Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb - The fact that I didn't like Ship of Magic was a big surprise. I liked the Farseer Trilogy well enough, and fans of Robin Hobb have mentioned that the Liveship Traders series is her best. I just couldn't get into the story and didn't feel invested in the characters. I will likely read the second book to see if the series improves though.

Finding a book that is surprisingly good makes me happy, and it happens more often than reading a book that is not as good as I expected. (Or maybe I remember the good ones more than the not-so-good?) Have you read any books lately that are better or worse than you expected?

Where to start with my books

When I discover an author who already has an extensive bibliography, I often search for suggestions about which of their books to start with. With that in mind, I thought it'd be fun to share where I think a new reader should start with my books. 

The good news is that most of my books are standalone, so you can pick them up without having read my other books. However, there are four books I normally recommend to my first-time readers, depending on what you're looking for.

1. If you want something short in order to sample my writing style: "Drive". "Drive" is a short story set in a post-apocalyptic world, a theme that runs through several of my books. Although it's the first book in a series of short stories, "Drive" can be read on its own.  
2. If you want a longer story that's representative of the YA books I've written: Transmissions. I recommend this book especially if you aren't in the mood for a dystopian/post-apocalyptic story. It's YA, it's a novella, and it's a great story IMHO.
3. If you like reading a series: Hopeless. The only adult novel series I've written is the After Z-Day series, and Hopeless is the first book. Read it to find out my take on the zombie apocalypse.
4. If you're looking for a book for a younger audience: George and the Galactic Games. This is the first book I published, so it holds a special place in my heart. Although it's targeted to a pre-teen audience, readers of all ages can enjoy this book.

I hope this helps if you've been considering which of my books to start with!

     

AI-generated books

In my last post, I mentioned AI-generated books as a trend I don't support. Then came the controversy surrounding Shy Girl, a novel that Hachette pulled due to allegations that the author used AI when writing the book. 

There's no doubt that AI is creating more of the content that we consume, whether they are books, images, or videos. I heard stories of self-published AI-written books entering the market two years ago. It's also getting harder to distinguish what was created by a machine rather than a person. 

What's troubling to me isn't just that AI is taking over our lives. (And in case they're monitoring me, I, for one, welcome our AI overlords!) It's the deception on the part of authors who use AI. To me, stories reflect the way a writer views the world and how they have experienced it. Like art, books are an expression of us as human beings. People read books not just to ingest facts or prose, but to feel a connection to the story and characters on the page. Learning that a story I read was written by AI would feel like finding out that a person I've met recently and have been connecting with is actually a machine. I would be devastated if one of my favorite authors ever used AI to write their books, even if AI could imitate their writing style perfectly.

I'm afraid that we'll see more controversies like Shy Girl, especially as AI improves on a seemingly daily basis. I can only hope that authors choose not to use it to write their stories, or, if they do, they disclose the role that machines have in their works so that readers aren't misled.