Review and Rating Policy

If you want me to review a book, email me: patricia [äät] bookex­hi­bi­tion­ism [dot] de or, bet­ter yet, fill out this form.

When I receive review-requests I assume that the fol­low­ing pol­icy has been read:

If you request a review, you accept that..

1. your book will be reviewed hon­estly or not at all. If I con­sider myself too biased to write an hon­est review, I will let you know and prob­a­bly also ask if there is another way for me to pro­mote it.
2. you can­not set up a date as to when the review will be posted, and can­not assume I will be able to give you one, either.
3. I might become a fan­girl and pro­pose. Hap­pens rarely, but it does.

Do not request reviews if you can’t accept the terms above.

What I review:

Almost every­thing, though not every review will be posted on this blog. Some will only appear on Amazon.com or .de, and Goodreads. You may feel free to request a title, but most of the times I prefer..

Fic­tion: Adult nov­els with roman­tic or para­nor­mal (or both) ele­ments. My favorite genre is Paranormal/Urban Fan­tasy, fol­lowed by Para­nor­mal Romance. I do read Con­tem­po­rary and His­tor­i­cal Romance, as well as Roman­tic Sus­pense and Hor­ror nov­els with stronger roman­tic ele­ments. In short: If there is romance, I’m all for it. I do read books that are not dom­i­nated by the protagonist’s lovelife, though, so if you think I might enjoy your novel – based on the books I read, that is – give it a go!

I do read non-fiction, but only: Books about books, psy­chol­ogy and men­tal dis­or­ders, par­ent­ing, self-help, and cupcakes.

About my reviews

With 2012 com­ing, I decided to finally take the last step to the almost-no-star rat­ing. From Feb­ru­ary on BE also is in the Dear Future Self Edition. : )

I will keep the star rat­ings going, since I’m a Ama­zon and Goodreads-user, but I won’t put as much thought into those rat­ings, instead we now have sev­eral dif­fer­ent ones and I’ll explain which ‘stars’ might be the equals to the terms I’ll use:

1. So bad it hurts, plain bad, hor­ri­ble, want to throw up, unread­able: 0–1.5 stars
2. Bear­able, dis­liked: 1–2.5 stars
3. Okay, read­able, enjoy­able, mhe: 1.5–3 stars
4. Good, like, enjoyed: 2.5–4.5 stars
5. Great, loved: 4–5 stars
6. Want to marry this book | want to have chil­dren with this book: 5 stars and more

In addi­tion to these rat­ings I also have the “rec­om­mend” and “rant” part. I think none need any fur­ther explanation.

Some other things I’d like to add:

I have never stud­ied lit­er­a­ture, instead I’m just an avid reader. And when I say avid I mean: I read more than 400 books last year, accord­ing to Goodreads, that is. That’s ~125.000 pages.

I will never inten­tion­ally insult an author, I will never take money for a pos­i­tive review (I am a PR friendly blog, though. Which means that if I liked your book or prod­uct and you want me to pro­mote it, I’m most inclined to accept your offer. ;)), and I will never inten­tion­ally ask any­one to boy­cott an author or pub­lish­ing house.

BUT I will be hon­est, always. And I will call every­one on their bullshit-myself included. ; )

My rat­ings depend on the genre.

• 
  Books with a 0 out of 5 stars rat­ing are prob­a­bly insult­ing, degrad­ing, crap, unnec­es­sary, ras­sis­tic or plain bad.
• 
  I didn’t like these books, wouldn’t buy them and had I known what I know now I wouldn’t have read them. I wouldn’t recom­ment them either, except if I know you like this type of book. IMO they have many flaws, are prob­a­bly annoy­ing or bor­ing, lack plot and are full of porn or unin­ter­est­ing details.
• 
  Not too bad. I would prob­a­bly not buy these books again, but I wouldn’t call them a waste of tree and time either. They prob­a­bly have some flaws or make my pet-peeve-barometer blink like crazy. They may have great poten­tial, but lack a proper exe­cu­tion. Much is pos­si­ble with these and I wouldn’t not rec­om­mend them, but def­i­nitely advice you to bor­row or swap them instead of pay­ing the full price.
• 
  Aver­age – good reads. Some or minor flaws. I prob­a­bly enjoyed the read well enough, but books with a 3 stars rat­ing often come with a big pet-peeve-review. I wouldn’t buy them again, except if they were part of a series I love (or look fab­u­lous) but I don’t regret read­ing them.
• 
  Books I liked very much and would buy again. 4 stars can still mean that the books are guilty plea­sure reads, but I enjoyed read­ing them. I would, how­ever, advice you to read­ing an excerpt before buy­ing these.
• 
  Some­one on Goodreads has a shelf that’s called “leave awe­some­ness behind”. Books with a 5 stars rat­ing are prob­a­bly exactly what the mem­ber was talk­ing about. I loved them and they’re near per­fect. Def­i­nitely recommend!

I will slowly try to find another way to rate books. I have a lit­tle tax­on­omy for it already, but we’ll see how that works out. My locally installed Word­Press seems to accept it. ; D – DONE!