How does /lit/ feel about book ratings on sites such as goodreads?

>>8643498

i dont really care about a books rating. some of my favorite books have been rated very highly because they were challenging and obscure enough that popularity didnt lead to the wrong people reading it. the other side of this is that some of my favorites have mediocre ratings since the public is aware and for the most part failed to understand them.

i use it more for recommendations. as long as youre not absolute pleb tier, the recommendations will lead to some really great and underrepresented authors.

i am not sure how popular bartheleme is around here, but i would never have found him without GR.

>>8643505
Low tier two high tier three meme.

>>8643498
I don't care about aggregate sites, I just use about a half dozen individual reviews (not on Goodreads, their own sites/columns) and get a good idea of whether I'll like it that way.

>>8643537
Yeah the actual numbers don't matter at all but by reading a few reviews you should get an idea of if it's your type of book.

>>8643498

Ratings and people are stupid.

>>8643498
i use mal but not goodreads because its fun to remember what i watched using mal but goodreads is pleb as fuck + all i have to do is look at my bookshelf

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>>8643498
eh. some clearly give ratings as political statements or fail to understand a book. I have seen both idiotic 5 stars and idiotic 1 stars.

>>8643498
They're like rotten tomatoes or IMBD, they can tell you whether a book is shit but they can't tell you if a book is good

>>8643587
Right, that's why I read reviewers who I already know have similar taste to me.

I use it for keeping track of what I've read and my backlog, and I avoid even looking at the reviews and other "community" features unless I want to laugh at plebeians. Same as MAL, really.