Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

I sorted my TBR list by Average Rating and at the top is The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011, with an average rating of 4.80.

What's your top TBR?

The top of my TBR shows The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas with an average rating of 4.65.

My top came out as Buried Heart with 4.72, but it's not out yet. ARCs and review copies aren't a very big base for comparison, so I'll go with the 3rd on the list which is Magic Binds with 4.57

I hadn't thought of sorting it that way before, I don't usually look at the overall rating, but it's interesting to look at them a new way.

And since I'm looking, my lowest that's not at zero from being too far in the future is A Borrowed Man at 3.28

I don't remember adding it, my list has gotten a little long to keep up with lately.😃

Mine is Trevor Noah's Born a Crime :) 4.49

Interesting question...I decided that I would only report highest rated with a minimum of 1000 votes as I have a tie for 3 books that are 5.00 but noticed they each had less than 10 votes...so the winner is "The Outlander Series book 1-7" rating 4.73 (I have read 6 of the 7 books so runner up was a Brandon Sanderson Novel.

I'd never thought of sorting my tbr shelf in that way before - maybe I'll add "highest-rated tbr" to my monthly to-read list. :-)

But...interestinger and interestinger: when I sort my GR tbr list by average rating, the top book on the list is not the book with the highest rating! There are several books which occur later in the list which have a higher average rating, and I can't work out why GR is sorting them in this way. It doesn't appear to be largely affected by the number of ratings, because some of those which come later in my list have more ratings (>25k) than the one that appears first (which has 15k ratings - it's Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan). Hm...

The highest rated book (4.82) on my TBR is Obsidio byAmie Kaufman. It's the 3rd book in The Illuminae Files series.

At 4.69 I haveAssassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool, #3) by Robin Hob. It was just released last month and I'm super excited to read it

Mine is The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I like to use various TBR sorts to pick out my next book. I recently picked out The Fault in Our Stars from my TBR because it had the most ratings, aka I was missing out.

My highest at 4.81 is The Disallowed: The Tale of a Contemporary Vampire Family but it only has 16 votes overall so I'll go with my second highest The Name of the Wind which is 4.55 with over 400,000 votes. I actually think this a great way to pick a book. Can't believe I never thought of it before!

On the other end of the spectrum, my lowest is The Romance Readers' Book Club at 2.59. I feel a bit sorry for it down there at the bottom. Hopefully if I ever get round to reading it I can give it a nice high rating to boost it up.

If I only limit it to books that have already been released (I have some upcoming releases on my TBR already), the highest is A Court of Mist and Fury with an average rating of 4.73, followed by The Hate U Give which is rated 4.65

The lowest is The Word for Yes, which has an average rating of 2.76

Debstr wrote: But...interestinger and interestinger: when I sort my GR tbr list ..."

Now that you mention it, I'm seeing some oddities like that in mine too, but nothing here is more than about 0.2 stars out of place. Curious!

My highest rated published TBR book is Six of Crows at 4.46 with just under 100,000 ratings. Funnily enough I just got this book from the library!

My lowest is Murder on the Eiffel Tower, with only a 2.87 and less than 1500 ratings. Interesting.

Debstr wrote: "But...interestinger and interestinger: when I sort my GR tbr list by average rating, the top book on the list is not the book with the highest rating! ..."

Yes, same for me! There's a definite trend in having higher ratings before lower ratings, but the list is not in order. I tried sorting and resorting several times and things always come back in the same order. The number of ratings, as you suggested, doesn't seem to have anything to do with it for me, either. I asked my husband, who has a master's in statistics, if he could figure it out, but it didn't make sense to him.

In any case, my highest rated book (4.80) is #2 on the list (Creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial: The Inside Story). Number 1 on the list is only 4.38 (The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine), but I have 14 books that are more highly rated than that!

My lowest rated TBR book with more than a handful of ratings is A Separation at 2.94 (3000+ ratings), but it 5th on the list. The one that holds the spot for lowest ranking on the list (though it definitely isn't the lowest ranking) is The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading with 3.67 -- and I have to go 5 pages in to get any other book with a rating like that! It's WAY out of place!

Tara wrote: "Mine is Trevor Noah's Born a Crime :) 4.49"

Mine too! I definitely must read this book! ;-)

My highest rated published book is A Court of Mist and Fury with a rating of 4.73. Truth be told I haven't read any Sarah J. Maas books, in yet all of them are on my TBR shelf...

The Fabrications by Baret Magarian

She's Toxic by Abrams with a 4.72, but it only has 18 ratings
When Breath becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi 4.32 with over 100,000 ratings

Jenn wrote: "At 4.69 I haveAssassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool, #3) by Robin Hob. It was just released last month and I'm super excited to read it"

Same book for me. But I will wait until the french translation before reading it. Or I will be lost with all the names.

Second one is The Way of Kings at 4.64

Thanks for sharing! Really good point about the number of ratings. My first "bigtime" book is also The Way of Kings. Maybe it's time to try it out!

Checkmate with a 4.71. I did have a couple of 5.0 ratings but all are obscure and only have 1-2 people rating them.

OK, almost started a new thread for this question, but I was afraid we'd start getting self-promo spam based on the thread title! And it's related, or at least it was inspired by looking at this thread.

What 4 or 5 star book (read & rated by you) do you have that has the lowest total # ratings by other people?

For instance, I have 3 books that I gave 4 star ratings to, but which have single digit totals of folks rating them. Because I like the weird stuff. :)

Hungry Constellations has the least ratings, with 5. It's a collection of SF/F/H poetry, which is a category very difficult to find, and clearly not in demand by many people other than me, but overlaps multiple of my favorite things.

Honorable Mention going to Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory with 6 people rating it, and Original with 8.

I only have one on my tbr with fewer than 10 ratings and it isn't rated 4+. My lowest number of ratings in the 4+ has over 3000 ratings. It is How to Save a Life by Emma Scott.

oh this is a fun question!!! I've got several TBRs that aren't published yet, and they all have 5 star ratings, because apparently some Goodreaders don't understand the rating system and use it just to indicate their excitement level. Scrolling down to books that have actually been published and read by others... is a surprise: Russian Lessons by Catherine Texier with a rating of 4.58. But okay, that only has 12 ratings. Next is Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay, with a 4.51 overall. Funny, I'm not really that excited to read that one, because I wasn't crazy about Bad Feminist, but I added it to my TBR anyway since it's getting a lot of positive buzz. Then there is Find Momo Coast to Coast: A Photography Book, 4.57, which is sort of a gimme-high-stars kind of book (who would NOT give Momo 5 stars???). And after that is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, with an overall of 4.55 (and I'm wondering why Goodreads would sort those below 4.51?? can't the Goodreads algorithm COUNT? weird ...) which I'm also not that excited about reading, because it gets some BAD reviews too, and ... uhg, long. Finally, comes a highly rated book that is published AND I'm excited to read it: The Alice Network by Kate Quinn with an overall of 4.35.

Sanasai wrote: "OK, almost started a new thread for this question, but I was afraid we'd start getting self-promo spam based on the thread title! And it's related, or at least it was inspired by looking at this th..."

I have a few Under 50 ratings, but all of them are french canadian or at least french written. I guess that's why.

I have quite a few that I added due to the 500 women group that have very few ratings and I'm excited to read, even though so far I find that they are pretty meh books overall - it's still interesting to read books that are more obscure for me.

Unauthorized Cinnamon wrote: "Thanks for sharing! Really good point about the number of ratings. My first "bigtime" book is also The Way of Kings. Maybe it's time to try it out!"

I finished it last week for the over 800 pages prompt. The first half is pretty slow whilst it's world building but then the second half is great

Kathy wrote: "The top of my TBR shows The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas with an average rating of 4.65."

Yeah, I helped with that. I gave it a 5. Fabulous read, one of those books you can read differently as a high school student, a college student, a young adult, and a parent/grandparent. Makes for wonderful conversation. I read The Hate U Give for this challenge, as a book where the main character is a different ethnicity than me, but it could have been several other categories.

I also gave a 5 to Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, which several people mentioned above. I read it as my 2016 Bestseller, but it could have been several other categories, too.

My TBR list is a mess, since so many of the books on it are books that are in my classroom library, but I don't necessarily plan to read any time soon. However, sorting the books that way helped me think about my priorities. Thanks for that suggestion.

Sanasai wrote: "OK, almost started a new thread for this question, but I was afraid we'd start getting self-promo spam based on the thread title! And it's related, or at least it was inspired by looking at this th..."

I was really intrigued by this question but weirdly my read list refuses to sort by number of ratings. It'll sort for other things, like my rating, page length, etc, but not number of ratings. WTH, goodreads. How dare you not function perfectly at all times.

My highest rated book is The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying by Brent Armendinger, a poetry book with a 4.85 rating.

My highest rated with above 1,000 reviews is My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, a graphic novel new release with a 4.40 rating.

My tbr list of the books that I own shows that my highest rated is Crooked Kingdom

Well, I can't sort by number of ratings but I can sort by my rating. So here are some 4 and 5 star books I've read with less than 500 ratings.

A Dark And Stormy Night : this is a fun mystery series by Jeanne Dams. If you like Murder She Wrote, you will probably enjoy these.

City of Clowns : graphic novella, very artistic

The Last Unicorn: A Search for One of Earth's Rarest Creatures : nonfiction book about searching for a probably-extinct animal; way more people should read this

This is the least rated 4 or 5 star book I have at 87 ratings
Les Aventures de Tintin: Le Secret de la Licorne - Le Tresor de Rackham le Rouge : the reason this has so few ratings is probably because it's in french, but if you've never read a Tintin you should check it out. They're pretty cute.

Jackie wrote: "Well, I can't sort by number of ratings but I can sort by my rating. So here are some 4 and 5 star books I've read with less than 500 ratings.

A Dark And Stormy Night : this is a f..."

Those are my favorite Tintin.

Fannie wrote: "Jackie wrote: "Well, I can't sort by number of ratings but I can sort by my rating. So here are some 4 and 5 star books I've read with less than 500 ratings.

[book:A Dark And Stormy Night|9780482..."

Have you ever watched the tv show?

Over and over again. The oldest version and the ''new'' one. Having a little brother help in that.

My highest is Seven Cups of Consciousness: Change Your Life by Connecting to the Higher Realms and it has a rating of 4.67.

Highest Fiction book that is already out is: Homecoming at 4.41

Jackie wrote: "Well, I can't sort by number of ratings but I can sort by my rating."

For anyone who hasn't figured out how to do this - go to your to-be-read list, click on Settings at the top and a list of potentially visible columns will appear. To sort by the number of ratings, click the box next to "num ratings", then once that has appeared as a column, click on the column name to sort by that. It will probably sort by largest number first; just click on it again to put the smallest number of ratings at the top.

Debstr wrote:

For anyone who hasn't figured out how to do this - go to your to-be-read list, click on Settings at the top and..."

You also have to save the settings to have it keep the new column when you change pages - I was a little confused about that, but then it worked!

Sanasai wrote: "OK, almost started a new thread for this question, but I was afraid we'd start getting self-promo spam based on the thread title! And it's related, or at least it was inspired by looking at this th..."

I love this question. I thought I had a 4-star that has only TWO ratings, but it was just title/edition confusion. (It's The Were-Wolf which is a great werewolf story written by a woman in 1896 - check it out if you're into weird fiction!)

So my legit lowest number of ratings is 53 for Interlands. Go read this, folks! :) It's a pretty darn good tale of a modern scholar searching eldritch New England woods for an accursed cult monument. Made me really want to visit Providence, as well as giving me the creeps!

Oooo, those both sound interesting! :)

Sanasai wrote: "OK, almost started a new thread for this question, but I was afraid we'd start getting self-promo spam based on the thread title! And it's related, or at least it was inspired by looking at this th..."

Mine is a weird one, because I'm QUITE sure a lot more people read this book than the number would indicate. I think it's just that it's an old book, and those people have not found Goodreads, or maybe they just didn't bother adding it. Alternatively, I'm the one who's wrong, and I've confused this listing with something else. I dunno. Anyway, I gave Zippy #3 4 stars. It has TWO ratings. We both gave it 4 stars. Maybe we are both very very confused.

Mine is The Nightingale

Slings & Arrows /Gone Omnibus by Julie Elizabeth Powell - 5.0 but only has 5 ratings/4 reviews.

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying with a 4.38 rating. This is actually how I've been sorting my TBR books to pick my next read lately !

Unfortunatelly the sorting isn't working correctly :-)

So far I can see the books with the highest rating & more than 500 ratings is Hook, Line and Blinker by Jana Deleon it's really a great series!
The 5.00 with the highest # of ratings (both 8 ratings) are:
Abraham: Living the Life of Faith by Gregory Brown
Double the Suspense: Matt Foley/Sara Bradford Series Box Set by V.B. Tenery

My highest rated TBR is 5.0 Field Guide to Snowflakes. I have no idea where I found that to TBR it since it only has 3 ratings.

The next highest I have with a decent number of ratings is a gorgeous picture book I want very much, 4.52 Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon

The highest I have with over 1000 ratings is 4.45 Ada Twist, Scientist

And the highest rated adult book with over 1000 ratings is 4.43 The Good Immigrant


Of course, all of my actual TBR books aren't on here, because I stopped marking them earlier this year. I noticed when I would finish reading one, it would show up on Goodreads listed back when I added it, not when I read it. This made it less than ideal for a few things I referenced. I have been thinking of dumping that and just marking them like I used to.

So in reality by highest rated non picture book with over 1000 ratings is probably The Hate U Give

does it count if the book hasn't arrived yet? Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King & his son Owen...

Of books that have actually been released, the highest rated currently is A Court of Mist and Fury, with an average rating of 4.71

Captive Prince Volume Two. 4.50

Mine is very odd as again, the ratings aren't quite in order but the top one still appears to be the highest rated. My top is The Way of Kings, Part 1 with 4.64 but there seem to be a lot of editions of this book so maybe the reviews would be different if these were collated. Still, I have heard good things about this author and this is a book I look forward to reading.

My lowest rated is No More Heroes (2.88) but this only has 25 reviews. So the next lowest rated that has more reviews is To Rise Again at a Decent Hour with 3.08.