Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Wish I Could Change My Rating For

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Alright, y'all, this is a freebie week, so I'm doing one that I thought of a couple of weeks ago. Most of the time when I look back at my reviews, I'm all like "hell yeah, that's exactly what I thought; go me!" but sometimes I want to *headdesk* because further thought has given me a different view of the book. This is a weakness of my review process, whereby I work on my review right after finishing the book. I do this for a reason: my memory. If I waited too long, there would be nothing substantive in my review and there would be a serious danger of confusing it with the books I'd read since. Still, it generally works out just fine, but sometimes, especially since I started adding ratings to my reviews (in fact these are all from that time period), I've wished I could sneak back over and change it. This list is meant to highlight those books and just put it out there in the internet that my endorsement might be different were I to rewrite the review.

10. The Fox Inheritance - Mary E. Pearson (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 2.5
Why? I liked the first book and really wanted to enjoy this. I hate rating down authors that I've liked in the past.

What I Would Rate It Now: 1.5-2
Why? This shouldn't have been written, imo. The Adoration of Jenna Fox was much stronger as a standalone, I think. This one sounded like a cool idea, but it was ridiculous. There were so many things where you learn rather casually like 'oh yeah, that happened' and I'd be all UMMM WHAT. Either this shouldn't have happened or we needed some flashbacks or something to explain some of the crazy changes from the end of the first book. This just didn't seem particularly well done.

9. Unraveling - Elizabeth Norris (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 5

Why? Because it was CRAZY AWESOME.

What I Would Rate It Now: 4.5

Why? People have raised some good points about this one, and I'd even noticed some as I read, but was so completely into it that I just sort of tossed them aside. I am in no way wanting to remove my endorsement of this book. I still think it's CRAZY AWESOME, but I don't think it was one hundred percent perfect.

8. Struck - Jennifer Bosworth (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 2.5
Why? It was an easy read. I wanted to be nice. I don't know.

What I Would Rate It Now: 2
Why? This book was a huge disappointment and definitely not for me. I did not come out of this book feeling wishy-washy about it. My opinion was decided and it was negative. Apparently, I forgot what my 2.5 rating was for at some point. I mean, I seriously had nothing positive to say about the book besides that I liked the basic concept.

7. Scarlet - A.C. Gaughen (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 4.5
Why? There were several issues that I had temporarily as I worked through the book.

What I Would Rate It Now: 5
Why? Umm, because those issues I had were me not being sure if Gaughen was going to convince me of something, and she always did! Basically, I'd be reading and thinking 'How is she going to make this shit work?!?! She can't, right?' and I was prepped for disappointment, and then she would make it work like a genius. The issues that I had were lack of trust. If I'd just relaxed and enjoyed the book with faith in the author, I would have given it a straight-up five. This was awesome, yo.

6. Fever - Lauren DeStefano (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 2.5

Why? I sort of liked Wither and I was so excited to have won an ARC of this and I just wanted it to better than it was.

What I Would Rate It Now: 1.5-2

Why? Unlike most of the rest of these, this change of heart was precipitated by a brilliant review on Goodreads (I don't remember which review...I don't think it's at the top now). I wasn't happy with the book, which is why I rated a sort of meh book. DeStefano's writing is interesting and she has her own unique style, which I like, but I thought the story was freaking ridiculous. However, the reviewer pointed out that pretty much nothing happened. At the end of book two, we're basically where we were before (frustrating). Not only that, but the child (moppet!) served no purpose except to try to tug our damn heartstrings. This is not the way to get at my heartstrings.

5. Croak - Gina Damico (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 4.5
Why? Because I try to give out 5s carefully, I think. Perhaps because I found Damico's style alarming for like 3 pages before I got used to it and was endlessly amused through the rest of the book.

What I Would Rate It Now: 5
Why? Gina Damico's book deserves a 5. That's why. Her book is funny from beginning to end. Not only that, but she has some deep messages. Plus, she has a tough as nails heroine that questions the stereotype of what a woman is 'supposed' to be. There's nothing I think she did wrong in this book, which is why it deserves full points.

4. Goddess Interrupted - Aimée Carter (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 2.5
Why? I think because I liked the first book.

What I Would Rate It Now: 1.5-2
Why? I legitimately think this book was pretty much entirely awful. For one thing, very little is accomplished plot-wise. Worse, ninety percent of it is Kate's jealous and whining about how Henry doesn't love her. Fuck that. Then, after all of that goddamn whining, the resolution (spoiler ahead) is sex; they don't really resolve anything, but they knock boots, so obviously everything's perfect! *headdesk*

3. Shadows on the Moon - Zoë Marriott (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 4
Why? I really liked it, but I was overwhelmed. I was also a bit surprised that I hadn't picked up on the fact that it was a Cinderella story; I totally thought it was just fairy-tale-esque.

What I Would Rate It Now: 4.5
Why? Any issues I had with this book were very minor. This is a book I've continued to think about, and I definitely declare myself a Marriott fan on the strength of this book alone. Does a .5 make a difference? I think so. Marriott deserves that extra .5.

2. Of Poseidon - Anna Banks (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 2.5
Why? Because, though I hated it, it was an 'easy' read. This is something I've done since the beginning. Even if it wasn't good, it's saving grace was that it was short. I also knew that a lot of people would enjoy it, so I rated it up for that.

What I Would Rate It Now: 1-2
Why? Because I hated it. My rating should reflect that. I know this was a five star read for a lot of people, but my rating should reflect my opinion, not what I suspect others will think...which is what it does for the books that I love, so I don't know what was up with that. Either way, a 2.5 is definitely a meh rating; this should never had such a high rating. A 2 might be most appropriate, since, for me, that generally means 'not for me, but other folks will love it, I'm sure.' However, I'm still seriously irritated about the time I spent reading this novel, which is making me lean towards the 1.

1. This Is Not a Test - Courtney Summers (Offending Review)

What I Rated It Then: 4
Why? Like Speak, this is a book that hurt to read, and that definitely distracted me from the brilliance.

What I Would Rate It Now: 5
Why? I've mentioned my pretty terrible memory many times on the blog, so, when I still remember a book clearly months later, that really says something. Summers' novel has really stayed with me. I still find myself thinking about it now and I read the book in February. I sometimes have trouble remembering what I read last week. My review would also be way longer, since that's how my reviews have been trending.

What I've Learned About Myself by Making This List:
Another fun thing about creating this post is realizing how much review style has changed in the last few months. The more I read other blogs, the more I realize I should just be myself: long-winded, somewhat foul-mouthed, analytical. I used to censor myself so as not to offend, but I like my recent posts way better. They say what I want them to and the older ones don't. Oh well. Of course, these are also ones I was specifically not please with, so there's that.

I've also learned that I apparently need to be very careful assigning 2.5 and 4.5, since every single rating but one that I ended up unhappy with was one of those. This may, perhaps, become a regular feature (every six months or something), because sometimes this stuff happens! Let me know if you think that's a good idea!