3 Books I rated 3 Stars that I still think about...

Everyone is making their "best of" lists for the books they've read this year (I plan to do one too, hopefully soon) and planning their TBRs for 2023, but I wanted to take a few minutes to look back on three books I read a while ago that I still think about sometimes.

When reviewing and rating a book I always try to be as balanced as I can be. My reviews are always written the day of finishing a book or the day after if I finish it late at night or get busy. If I leave it for longer I'll either forget to leave a review or it'll start feeling like this looming difficult task that I'm delaying. Anyway, this means that my reviews are usually my initial reactions to the reading experience. They tell you how I felt about it right after closing the book. I'm well aware that ratings have issues, and sometimes even for me it's hard to decide how many stars I want to give to a book, because I want to be fair, but at the same time I'm very aware that this whole thing is subjective. But I do have a method that I am happy with for rating books. 

As an author I know full well how getting a less than 4 star rating can feel, but at the same time when I rate as a reader I have to be honest and the rating has to have a meaning. So I only give 5 stars to books I loved. Books I found it difficult to even nitpick. Typically, these are books I personally believe I'm going to remember for a while and I think they would be good for re-reads. 4 stars are easier to get, but it still means the book is top quality, just had a few little issues. When I give a book 3 stars I'm saying it had a lot of good in it, was enjoyable enough, but it had flaws. I usually don't consider these to be books that I will find memorable, but that's a prediction. 

Here are three books that, despite my initial 3-star rating, despite some flaws or weaknesses, I'm still finding myself remembering from time to time. A scene here. A cool idea there. An interesting bit of world-building or an intriguing character. 

The Dragon's Empire by J. D. Wilde

I read this book back in 2017, so it's been a while. What I do remember is that it was one of the books that helped me realize how creative indie authors could be and how refreshing it could be to read so many different ideas or ways of approaching the genre. It had dragons, too, which helped, and I remember that I really enjoyed the way the humans interacted with the world of dragons they discovered and how the dragons fit into the world-building. 

Let's look back at my review. According to my review the author did an excellent job of portraying team-work between the characters and it had some good world-building with different nations and politics and power-struggles. The main thing that didn't work for me seems to have been the POV being distant and not showing enough of the character's emotions and reactions to things like being able to fly on dragons! It's been too long for me to really be able to reassess whether this was a real issue or just my personal feeling/preference, so I'll leave it for you to check the book out and decide, but I put this book on my "potential read later works" list on goodreads so I can keep an eye on the author's other books! 

Empire of Chains by Ryan W. Mueller

I read and rated this book in early 2020 and I still remember that the world-building was really nicely done. There's a particular scene, where characters are on a mountaintop looking down on a big valley that I still remember. No idea what the context for that scene is, but it was good enough to stick around in my mind. I remember that the characters (possibly in a group) did a lot of traveling around the world in this book and I really enjoyed that. 

Let's check out my review and see what it has to say. According to my review, I really liked the world-building and the book had a lot of good elements, but I felt that there was a bit of weakness in how certain things were portrayed. Apparently, I found the descriptions and how/when they were included bogged down the action a bit. Again, though, I put this author on that potential bookshelf so I can check out his later works, because I hoped that with more writing experience behind him he could pull off some amazing stories. 

Of Blood and Steel by Seymour Zeynalli 

I read this book in early 2021 after hearing about it on r/fantasy, I believe. It's also got a gorgeous cover. Even though it's been over a year I still remember this book quite well. It had some excellent world-building and a big travel element that helped showcase the different parts of that world. I remember really enjoying many of the details of the world-building that was based off of the unique cultures of the Caucasus. 

Let's look back at my review. According to my review this book captured that sense of adventure I look for in fantasy books. What I most missed, apparently, was seeing more of the thoughts and feelings of the characters as they went on their journey. But my review also mentions that I loved a certain character reveal. So was I being too harsh in only giving it a 3-star rating? I'll let you guys decide if you check it out, but I again will definitely check out this author's other works when he publishes more of them and I may even go in for a re-read of this at some point. 

That's it for now. I've certainly learned over the past few years that a book doesn't have to be perfectly polished and flawless in all ways in order to be memorable and I definitely enjoyed these three books to remember their good world building and sense of adventure. If you're looking for adventure and interesting world building I hope that you give these books a chance and find something you enjoy in them.