The Joy of the Underappreciated Book

Do the books you read tend to be popular or unpopular?

I never thought about this until I found out how to check how many ratings a book had on Goodreads.  Then I realized how truly obscure my reading choices were.

Here’s how you can look at your Goodreads account.  Choose Settings at the top right of your Read page.  Select “num ratings.”

 

The “Num Ratings” column will show up between Average Ratings and Date Published. Click on it to get your books arranged by rating numbers. Click on it again to get it starting with the lowest number.

I learned about this for a Top Ten Tuesday that wanted us to see what books we had read with less than 2000 ratings?  2000? I have close to 50 books under 100 ratings.

So why should you care?

These can be the undiscovered gems that are so much fun to promote.  If you inspire one person to read and rate a book it can make a huge difference to the author. 

There are some really great books here too.  I’ve realized that some of my absolute favorite authors are in this low number of ratings categories.  I thought they were famous because their books are so good.

Here are some favorites I’ve read recently and their way too low numbers of ratings.

Lydia San Andres – 15 and 16 ratings

These are historical romances that take place in the early 1900s on an imaginary Caribbean island. 

A Summer for Scandal – “When Emilia Cruz agreed to accompany her sister to a boating party, she had no idea that the darling of the literary world would be in assistance—or that he would take such pleasure in disparaging the deliciously sinful serial she writes under a pseudonym. No one save her sister knows she’s the author and to be found out would mean certain scandal.“

The Infamous Miss Rodriguez – “Graciela Rodriguez is determined to break her engagement to Ciudad Real’s most eligible bachelor—even if it means ruining her reputation.  Vicente Aguirre has been hired by Graciela’s aunt to keep her wayward niece from damaging the family name along with her future. When her charms prove irresistible, will he fall for the infamous Miss Rodriguez?“

“Famed Broadway producer Milo Short may be eighty-eight but that doesn’t stop him from going to the office every day. So when he steps out of his Upper West Side brownstone on one exceptionally hot morning, he’s not expecting to see the impossible: a woman from his life sixty years ago, cherry red lips, bright red hat, winking at him on a New York sidewalk, looking just as beautiful as she did back in 1934.

The sight causes him to suffer a stroke. And when he comes to, the renowned lyricist discovers he has lost the ability to communicate. Milo believes he must unravel his complicated history with Vivian Adair in order to win back his words. But he needs help—in the form of his granddaughter Eleanor—failed journalist and family misfit.”

Only 89 ratings?  This book deserves more than that.

“Taylor Cipriano had everything figured out, back when she lived with her single mother in Miami. Now, she’s moved upstate for her junior year to live with her mom’s boyfriend and her soon-to-be-stepsister and is trying to figure out who she is out of the shadow of her best friend. When she meets Theo—quirky, cute, sensitive Theo—he seems like a great match…except he has a girlfriend. Josey, icy and oh-so-intimidating.

But Theo and Josey aren’t like anyone Taylor’s met before; Josey grew up in a polyamorous family, and the two of them have a history of letting a third person in to their relationship. It’s nothing Taylor’s ever considered before…but she really likes Theo.”

132 ratings.  This book was my first by this author and so far I’ve loved everything I’ve read of hers.

This series by M.C.A. Hogarth is so cute and sweet. 

Mindtouch  (252 ratings) – “Seersana University is worlds-renowned for its xenopsychology program, producing the Alliance’s finest therapists, psychiatric nurses and alien researchers. When Jahir, one of the rare and reclusive Eldritch espers, arrives on campus, he’s unprepared for the challenges of a vast and multicultural society… but fortunately, second-year student Vasiht’h is willing to take him under his wing. Will the two win past their troubles and doubts and see the potential for a once-in-a-lifetime partnership?“

Mindline (178 ratings) – “At the advice of Vasiht’h, his first and truest friend, Jahir Seni Galare has accepted one of the most coveted residencies in xenotherapy, even though doing so has severed him from all the relationships he’s fostered since leaving his cloistered homeworld. But not all the simulations at school have prepared him for the reality of being an esper in a hospital large enough to serve the winter capital of the entire Alliance, and it’s not long before he’s questioning the wisdom of having left the university for the tumult of one of the largest port cities in the known worlds.”

Dreamhearth (50 ratings) – “Jahir and Vasiht’h have earned their licenses as xenotherapists at last, and they have their hearts set on starting their practice in one of the Alliance’s most exciting and cosmopolitan destinations: a sector starbase. But dream therapy is a revolutionary treatment modality, and as esper practictioners they will have to work hard to win the trust of their community. Not only that, but they have a deadline: if they can’t prove themselves an asset to the starbase within six months, they’ll have to leave! “

This book is fairly new so hopefully it will get more than 22 ratings.

“News media brought the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”–the famous swirling gyre of plastic pollution in the ocean–into the public consciousness. But when Marcus Eriksen cofounded the 5 Gyres Institute with his wife, Anna Cummins, and set out to study the world’s oceans with hundreds of volunteers, they discovered a “plastic smog” of microscopic debris that permeates our oceans globally, defying simple clean-up efforts. What’s more, these microplastics and their toxic chemistry have seeped into the food chain, threatening marine life and humans alike.

Far from being a gloomy treatise on an environmental catastrophe, though, Junk Raft tells the exciting story of Eriksen and his team’s fight to solve the problem of plastic pollution. A scientist, activist, and inveterate adventurer, Eriksen is drawn to the sea by a desire to right an environmental injustice. Against long odds and common sense, he and his co-navigator, Joel Paschal, construct a “junk raft” made of plastic trash and set themselves adrift from Los Angeles to Hawaii, with no motor or support vessel, confronting perilous cyclones, food shortages, and a fast decaying raft.”

What underrated books do you love?