Romantic Times is re-thinking its review system. According to the monthly newsletter, things are about to change. Specifically, we should now know from the review why one book gets a 3 versus a 4. The publisher says this:

…the review will lead off with the “opinion paragraph” in larger, bold-faced type followed, in the next paragraph, by the word Summary: and then the summary of the book. This is a way for you to skim through all the reviews to see what the reviewer thought of the book without having to find the opinion within the review. Also we are working hard with our reviewers to make sure there are no more “empty” phrases in the opinion. If it is mesmerizing, the reviewer will have to qualify “why” in the opinion. Also the opinion paragraph will qualify the star rating in the same way. If a book gets a 2 star, the reviewer will state what did not work for her. Likewise if it gets a 4 1/2 TOP PICK the reviewer will have to pinpoint for the readers what was so great about the book.

Also, the sensuality ratings are changing. They will now consist of three options instead of the previous overlapping five:

SCORCHER — Borders on erotic. Very graphic sex.
HOT — Most romance novels fall into this category. Conventional lovemaking. Explicit sex.
MILD — May or may not include lovemaking. No explicit sex

There’s more info on the RT Blog if you want to check it out.

As for me, I’m liking the proposed changes. The Star system RT uses to rate books works well if there’s some connection between the comments on the book in the review and the actual rating a book gets. Frankly, I tend to ignore the rating and see what the comments are on the book. As an example, the review I posted on Tuesday for Viva Las Bad Boys! is, in my view, a great review. Nothing negative. All positive. The review for when Good Things Happen To Bad Boys also was lovely. Good Things got a 4. Viva got a 3. Nothing in the respective reviews would explain the difference. In fact, I’d say the Viva review was much more positive. It would be nice to understand why one book got one rating and the other got another since the reviewer for both is the same.

For those wondering about the rating system, it goes like this:

4 1/2 Gold: Phenomenal. In a class by itself.
4 1/2: Fantastic. A keeper.
4: Compelling. A page-turner.
3: Enjoyable. A pleasant read.
2: Problematic. May struggle to finish.
1: Severely Flawed. Pass on this on.

We’ll see what happens…

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 6:30 am and is filed under About Books, About My Books, About Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.