My friends know I am literally the easiest rater ever. I never give anything below a 4. If the book is great to good, its a 5 and if it's ok to bad, it's a 4. So, why do I do that? Well, for a few reasons: 1) I know how hard it is to write a book, regardless of whether it turns out good or not and I feel bad giving them a bad rating, 2) when I first started out on goodreads, I had gotten into reading after a while of being a lazy ass, so I didn't have much to compare the books I read to. And, to me, they all seemed awesome. So, now, I sort of feel bad giving someone less than a 4 if I gave a book similar to it a 4 or 5 in the past.
But...my New Year's resolution this year (yes, I know, that's 2 months away, but I need some time to adjust) is to add in 3's to my ratings w/out feeling bad bc really, a 3 isn't so bad. And if I really didn't like a book, it shouldn't be grouped with those I liked.
So, watch out everyone, you might be seeing some 3's. :)