ONE DAY by David Nicholls

Very Good!

Delightful, tender, funny, smart. His life/her life on one particular day each year.

THE DEPT. OF SPECULATION by Jenny Offill

Excellent!

Nothing really happens—a woman’s  husband of many years has an affair. They get over it. But nothing really needs to happen. The writing is magnificent—compact, outside the box, poetic, compelling, insightful. I read it in one sitting.

New new rating system.

Pencils very cute. But x out of five not working for me. If I reserve five pencils for Richard Wright or Ursula LeGuin or William Faulkner, give four pencils to the books I've loved and would recommend, that means three pencils for the very good ones--maybe not "Oh, you *have to* read this," but "Oh, this was good; I think you might like it." Three pencils isn't enough for that. And what about good (but not fabulous)? Now we're down to two pencils, and that just isn't right.

So I tried to do it with simple words.

Truly awful. Bad. So-so. Decent. Good. Very good. Excellent. Truly stellar.
Okay. That's better. But that's eight pencils. Too much. So for the moment, I'll just use those words and see if it's working. And I'm going to add a ♥ icon if the book was written by someone I know. So I don't have to stick it with a rating, and can just enjoy my friends' accomplishments.

(This is why I hate putting a grade on student work. Among other reasons.)