Why I stopped rating books on a 5-star scale, and what I use instead

Star ratings collapse a book into a single number, and I noticed mine were almost meaningless in hindsight — a rushed 4-star from three years ago I now barely remember, sitting next to a 4-star I still think about weekly.

What I use now is a two-question note, written immediately after finishing: would I recommend this to someone specific, by name, and do I think about it unprompted a week later. The first question forces precision that a star rating hides — a book can be excellent and still wrong for almost everyone I know, which a 5-star rating would misrepresent.

The second question is the one that actually predicts whether a book mattered. Plenty of technically well-made books I finished and immediately forgot; a few flawed, uneven ones have stayed lodged in my head for months, resurfacing in unrelated conversations. That resurfacing, not the craft on the page, is closer to what I'm actually trying to measure when I decide what to read next.

I still see the star average other readers left on a book before I start it, and I still ignore it more than I used to. It answers a different question than the one that determines whether I'll finish, or love, what I'm about to read.