While I Really Appreciate the Five Stars...

 

I almost never check my Amazon author page for reviews, since I haven't gotten one since September of 2024, and really the only book I'm focused on right now is Running From Herself, which has a lot of free downloads, but very few purchases. But anytime I post on social media, I need to pull up the book page to copy its link (because why else am I posting on social media?) and yesterday my eyes happened to fall on this:

 

To my knowledge, the novel only had one review, and that one is posted on Amazon UK.  Since my average is 5 stars (!) I couldn't wait to scroll down to read those three lovely reviews.

Alas: 

 

I honestly don't understand why people so generously award a book five stars, yet don't write a single word. Please don't get me wrong; I'm touched and very appreciative. It's just that I don't get it.

So I Googled "Why do readers give a book five stars, but don't write a review?" Its AI tells me:

People leave five-star ratings on books without reviews for a few reasons. Some enjoy a book and simply want to indicate their positive sentiment without elaborating, while others might find it easier to quickly rate a book than write a detailed review. A simpler rating can also be a way to quickly acknowledge a positive experience without needing to articulate specific reasons.  

Okay, but you really have nothing to say? 

Here's a more detailed breakdown:
 
Quick and easy:
 
 Leaving a rating is often faster and easier than writing a review. 
  
Positive sentiment: 
 
Some readers might simply enjoy a book and want to let the author or other readers know without needing to explain why. 
 
Limited time/effort:
 
Not everyone has the time or desire to write detailed reviews for every book they read. 

("I liked it" isn't exactly a detailed review.)

I tried to research further, but it seems that no one ever asks about five-star ratings with no accompanying reviews; only about one or two-star. Leave it to me to question something that's good. 🙄

I did learn that writing a review on a Kindle is more complicated and clumsy than leaving one on Amazon's site. I can relate; I write texts with my index finger, instead of my two thumbs. And I think that's the answer. Easy enough to tap one's finger on a ⭐; harder to tap out text. 

I also learned this:

"...only ratings from verified purchases will be considered in the product’s overall star rating average..." 

So, good news! All three of those people actually bought the book!

To add to all that, here's my personal take on book reviews:

I could be an outlier, but I rarely leave a book review. It doesn't even cross my mind. If I really enjoyed a book, my first thought isn't to share my opinion with the world. Who am I? Nobody. Plus, if a book already has ten thousand reviews, what would be the point? Now, since becoming an author, if I read a book by another indie writer, I would deliberately leave a review, but only if I liked the book. Readers don't know how valuable reviews are, but authors sure do.

I've only written reviews a couple of times and only on trade-published books that generally had a lot of undeserved hype. One book I'd eagerly anticipated turned out to be a huge disappointment, and the other was ostensibly about music ~ a famous family's journey through the music business ~ but the book was almost completely political. I was pissed. Pissed enough to bother leaving a review.

But the fact is, I rarely feel strongly one way or the other about a book. Yes, I like books that are "good", but that's kind of a low bar. If it's not good, I don't bother finishing it. (I've abandoned a lot of books. A lot.)

So, bottom line: Those three people read the book on Kindle, they liked it enough to tap the five-star rating, and that's an honor for me. 

So I really need to stop bitching.