How Are We Rating Nonfiction?
By: The Nonfiction Team
Why does it feel wrong to rate a gut-wrenching history book as 'five stars'? Why does it also feel wrong to read a 300-page memoir just to get to the end and waver between giving it a rude two or a generous three-star? What if it bored you to tears, but the topic was important during a cultural moment? The nonfiction team at Readin' Mag takes a look at the different aspects of nonfiction writing that play a role in how we rate these books!
Haley: No, your prisoner-of-war story sounded really hard, but I still gave your memoir two stars? I can’t leave that review, despite how desperately I may want a book to just end already when I’m reading it. When it’s someone’s life’s story or life’s work, am I a dick for skimping out on that fifth star because I thought she sounded repetitive in the eighth chapter, or because her character development fell flat by the end?
I mostly wondered about this when Men Have Called Her Crazy was released by Anna Marie Tendler, a renowned artist and former wife of comedian John Mulaney.
As the nosiest person in America, I got the ARC and read it in two days flat. But the reviews I read afterwards fluctuated between raving and full of flattery to downright insult. It made me second guess a book I felt generally mehhh towards. I had found her much less irritating than some, apparently, but what was it exactly that turned people off? Her self-absorption? Her warped perception? Her half-hearted resolution by the end that justified the need for a story to begin with?
I don’t just wonder this about memoirs. If you’ve spent part of the last decade with your face in the desert sands of the Middle East so that you can present the real stories of war and genocide in Gaza, who am I to give you three stars because I got a little bored in the middle there?
I don’t gravitate towards concepts like global policy, world history, and socioeconomics because they’re always real edge-of-your-seat thrillers, I gravitate towards them because I do want to learn. But 400 pages into an expose into the opioid crisis, I did wonder, at what cost?
Or what if I enjoyed the book thoroughly, agree with the author’s consensus, but I take issue with the presentation, the research, or the tone? bell hooks famously speaks of topics that I find near and dear to my heart– emotional awareness, vulnerability, masculinity, generational trauma– and yet I don’t like the way that she makes sweeping, inflammatory statements about these things. Something about her doesn’t click with me the way it does for some. It feels bad to give her books a low rating, as if I’m standing against her in some way that I’m not. But giving them a five-star as if I didn’t have qualms about how she cited (or didn’t cite) her sources? That feels disingenuous.
Or what if a book was pain-stakingly, agonizingly boring the whole way through, but by the end you’re convinced it should be standard reading for everyone alive on the planet?
Metrics feel easier for fiction sometimes: if I had a good time, you get some stars. But what makes a nonfiction book good?
Lolo: Attempting to set up and use a consistent approach to rating non-fiction is close to impossible for me because who am I to judge your life story? Or your years of research? However, after primarily reading nonfiction for the past five years, I’ve given myself a loose criteria set to follow: Did I learn something new from this book? Did it provide me with additional sources to research? Am I interested in learning more about this topic due to this book? If I can answer yes, automatic four stars. However, if a book provides me with some new information but I already had an awareness of the topic, is repetitive and/or may jump around topics without a strong connection between them, sorry, you’re getting three stars (and usually I won’t go any lower out of the kindness in my heart). If I finish your book in under 24 hours, automatic five stars, even if it is not my favourite book. Keeping my attention for that long deserves a high rating in my opinion. Is this a fair rating system? Absolutely not. However, nonfiction is often hard to start or can be intimidating for a lot of readers to get into. Especially when you have thousands of choices of fiction that can offer you an escape from your everyday life. Personally, sometimes I would also prefer to read fiction over a book about the decline of our democracy or the destruction of our climate. Or rising geopolitical tensions. Or the takeover of far-right ideologies. Or hatred of women. You see where I’m going with this….
Nonfiction is subjective; don’t stress about having the ‘correct’ rating system. If you like the book, give it five stars. If you think it’s trash, well, there you go!
Lindsey: Rating any book is a personal experience because reading is subjective of course, but when it comes to non-fiction, I think it gets weirder. I generally think of non-fiction in two categories: Memoir and research-based. Sure, those lines can blur, but that’s what my internal breakdown looks like, and I tend to think about my rating systems for each a bit differently.
Memoirs are obviously persona,l and, as has been said previously in this article, it feels icky (a very official term in any writer’s lexicon) to give a rating to someone’s personal life story. I think that’s why you’ll hear so many people say they don’t rate memoirs. I am not one of those people. My take on it is this: if I enjoyed the memoir, I’m like Oprah with my stars, “you get a three-star and you get a three-star and you get a three-star.” This might be wild to some, but I consider a three-star rating to be solidly “good.” It means I generally enjoyed the book and would recommend it. Four and five stars to me means “holy shit, this was an EXPERIENCE.” I read most memoirs as audiobooks since it’s like listening to a new friend tell me their life story, and that can sometimes pull a medium-good memoir into a wow-worthy read. Take the Britney Spears memoir.
Was that necessarily well written? In my opinion… no, not really (Britney fans, don’t come for me!) But it was written in her voice, felt authentic, and I had a nice time with it. Three stars! Had I listened to the audiobook and loved Michelle Williams’ narration, perhaps I would have bumped it up to a four, but the TLDR is that it’s not inherently bad to give a book a three-star rating. Not even a memoir.
Now, for research-based–this is where I get a little spicy. In college I was a history major and you can bet your ass I read a lot of long winded, heavily foot-noted white men write about other white men. It got very old very fast. Because of that, I’m pretty critical of research-based non-fiction, and five-star ratings are pretty rare since it has to have the magic three:
Be well-researched and written (table stakes for a three-star rating)
Not make me fall asleep or tune out whole paragraphs if I’m listening as an audiobook
Teach me something that feels life-changing that makes me want to yap about it to people who don’t typically find themselves caring about non-fiction
That third consideration is a big one. If I’m compelled to make small talk with strangers to tell them about a research-based book I’ve just read, that’s how I know it’s good (I’m from Seattle, which means I’d rather gnaw my own arm off than make small talk with someone I don’t know). So if I saddle up to you in a coffee shop, don’t be surprised if I find a way to bring up Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win--it’s just one of many non-fiction books I need more people to know about because it might just change your life, too.
Rose: I go back and forth all the time about rating books. Being a mood reader in general, I find it to be more challenging. Sometimes, it feels so clear — I get that gut feeling — a solid three, four, or five if the storytelling or writing was unfathomably impactful. But I don’t often find myself treating ratings as too precious. Sometimes, I love to give a book a five simply because it was captivating, fun, or experimental, and I think that’s just as valid. When it comes to nonfiction, though, I think rating becomes even more subjective. After you’ve read enough nonfiction, you realize that even though these books are rooted in reality, their impact is deeply personal — and that shows up in how you rate them.
For memoirs especially, I find myself working off an entirely different scale. Because memoirs are based on personal experience, it rarely feels fair to reduce someone's life story to a rating. In those cases, my criteria shift — I’m less concerned with how "objectively good" the writing is and more focused on how the book made me feel. Did it move me? Did it resonate with me in a way I can’t quite put into words? If so, I’m much more likely to give it a higher rating, even if the writing itself was flawed. I’ve realized I tend to approach memoirs like I would a long, intimate conversation with someone — the value lies in the connection, not the technical execution.
For more research-heavy or highly historical nonfiction, my parameters shift again. In those cases, I’m more attentive to the structure, clarity, and depth of the research. I’m thinking about how well the author built an argument, whether they introduced new perspectives, and how effectively they convey complex ideas. If a book can do all of that while also being compelling to read, it’s an easy high rating for me. But still, even with those books, I think there's a lot of room for subjectivity — sometimes a book’s importance outweighs its writing, or its approach feels deeply personal despite being steeped in facts.
Ultimately, I think that’s what I love about nonfiction — the range of possible experiences. The rating system isn’t just about technical execution; it’s about the personal response it provokes. And for me, that shifts depending on the kind of nonfiction I’m reading. Memoirs get rated by feeling; historical or analytical nonfiction gets rated by craft. Both matter, just in different ways.
