Who we are, and what the numbers mean
We are one family: two parents and three kids. We read a lot, we disagreed constantly about what was fine for whom, so we built ourselves an app to write it down. This site is that app's reviews, made public.
The scores
Every review carries one required score and five optional ones. They are entered by hand, by the person who read the book, on a one-to-five slider with half steps.
- Overall. 1 means they would not recommend it, 5 means they loved it.
- Spice, Scariness, Violence, Profanity, Magic. 0 means none at all, 5 means tons. These are descriptions, not verdicts. A 4 for magic is not a complaint.
A dash instead of a number means nobody scored that category, usually because the review predates us adding it. We would rather show you a gap than guess.
Why a shelf can be trusted
When a book lands on a shelf like no spice, it cleared that bar for every family member who read it, not the average. And a book whose readers never scored that category is left off the shelf rather than assumed clean.
The readers
Money
Nobody pays us for a rating and nobody can. We link books to Bookshop.org, which splits its profits with independent bookshops. Right now those links earn us nothing at all. We have not signed up for their affiliate program. If we do, this page will say so.
Something wrong?
If we have a title, an author or a score wrong, we would genuinely like to know.