Goodreads Ireland discussion

This month the theme will be Low Rated Books on Goodreads. Please mention what rating the book has. For low rating, I would think it should be 3.0 or less. Please ensure the book is currently in commercial print and available widely to ensure all members can participate.

Please remember:
1. People may only nominate one book.
2. All nominations must be seconded.
3. You can nominate a book or second a book not both.
4. If the book you nominate wins, you must lead the discussion.
5. Authors may not self nominate.

Nominations shall close at midday GMT on Saturday 26th May . For those outside Ireland:

New York: 7.00am
LA: 4.00am
Sydney: 11.00pm, 26th May

That's a fun theme, BWK! I'm going to start researching something to nominate right now.

Sue, I think it's going to be harder than I thought! Most of my shelved books are 2.8 or above. We may have to raise the cut-off if people can't find suitable nominations!

Yes, my lowest rated shelved book is 2.7 and the one I thought to nominate is 2.93

Sue, I think we will ask people who comment here about raising the rating to 3.0. I hadn’t really looked at the books before I put 2.5, I thought there would be quite a few less than that. Goodreads readers are just too generous!

I think 3 is low enough because if you do go really low people might not want to read it .

Exactly, Colleen!

I have amended the opening post to a rating of 3.0 or less. Sue, you can nominate that book now!

Interesting..I don’t always go for what the mainstream does. It’ll be fun to see where this goes.

Is there a GR list of books somewhere with star ratings that we can access?

I nominate After Me Comes The Flood by Sarah Perry. I haven't read it, but I did enjoy her recent book The Essex Serpent. This one has very mixed reviews, some 1 & 2 stars, some 4 & 5 stars, and has an overall rating of 2.93. I suspect that as a first novel, it is not as polished as it might be.

Carol - I've never seen a way to search all books by star rating. I only found the Sarah Perry book because I had already put it on my 'to read' shelf.

I will second Sue's nomination.

Thank you, Donna. Looking forward to seeing what anyone else has to nominate.

I am so sorry to be so obtuse on this, Bookworm. I just don't understand the category. Why do we want to read books that aren't very good? I just can't wrap my mind around it. Sorry. I want to support you but this is one category that leaves me cold.

Susan it's books rated at 3 . Three is the middle it will have some reviews that are 5 or 4 etc and it offsets the 1 and 2's . I hated the book room I gave it a 1 but other people liked or loved . I haven't found a book I want to nominate but I think it's would be fun to discover who liked the book and who loathe it

Susan, I appreciate your support and I realise that it sounds like a strange request - to read a book that may not be very good. Colleen is right though, any of the books that I looked at on Goodreads that had a low rating did have some 4 and 5 stars. I suppose we could have called this the Marmite challenge - some people might love it and others may hate it! I am working from a list started by Emma for monthly themes. Perhaps people could suggest some themes for the coming months - maybe we could take books rated highly on Goodreads for July?

I like that idea about highly rated books BK.
How about dead authors ?

Collen, that's a good idea, I will put it on the list. Nominations have officially ended but we only have one book nominated and seconded - After Me Comes The Flood by Sarah Perry. Do people want me to leave the nominations open for another day or so?

Bookworm with Kids wrote: "Collen, that's a good idea, I will put it on the list. Nominations have officially ended but we only have one book nominated and seconded - After Me Comes The Flood by [author:Sarah..."

Just seeing this now... I found this GR page with worst rated books on GR
And those averaging 3.6 and below contained books I'd heard of.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...

The 3 and below were books that were truly bizarre, I can't find that list...

I only recognized one by Lisa See. I should have nominated Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris, a book I loathed although many liked it. Apparently animal cruelty and mistreatment of the mentally disabled appeals to some people.

I'm fine with reading After Me Comes The Flood I won't be able to start it until it comes from Book Depository . Amazon had it but with third parties . Book Depository has it for 8.33 no shipping . It isn't on kindle in U.S.

Thanks, Colleen. I haven't got a copy yet but I'm on the case and I'll join you later in the month (and hoping to welcome a few more readers - any takers?).

I'll be reading it, Sue.

Sue wrote: "Thanks, Colleen. I haven't got a copy yet but I'm on the case and I'll join you later in the month (and hoping to welcome a few more readers - any takers?)."

It sounds interesting , can't wait to read it.

Sue, I will be reading it as well. I have to finish my current book - The Age Of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby which I have only just started so it may be a week or so before I start. I wonder if it is anything like her book we read earlier this year, The Essex Serpent? I wasn't overly fond of it so it will be interesting to read another work by the same author.

I snagged a used copy on Amazon which is coming from a US seller. It was less than $6 and expected June 4-8.

That's great, Donna, BWK and Barbara - I'm rather looking forward to it now. I hope we like it and can bump its ratings over the 3 star threshold...