About Dark Shelf of Wonders & Rating Scheme

Dark Shelf of Wonders

Hey bookworms, you can call me Veros (She/Her). You can also call me booklover, metalhead, board game enthusiast, and craft dabbler.

My most read genres are fantasy and sci-fi but I also love a good mystery and the occasional historical fiction. I’ve been posting my book reviews on Instagram for a couple of years but I’m hoping Dark Shelf of Wonders Blog can be a slightly fancier home for my bookish ramblings.

Fun Fact: My blog name is a bookish play on words on the song “Dark Chest of Wonders” by the Finnish Symphonic Metal band ‘Nightwish’.

Some of my areas of interest are:

  • Ancient & Medieval History
  • Mythology
  • Nature and the Environment
  • Fashion History
  • Petting my dog, Cheeto

Rating Scheme

I recently switched to using the CAWPILE system and, so far, I’ve found it helpful (if a bit more work). If you’re not familiar with the system, it was invented by G at Book Roast and the video below explains how it works. I’ll also break it down below in case you don’t want to watch a video.

CAWPILE scores each book out of 10 in these 7 categories:

Characters
A
tmosphere
W
riting Style
P
lot
I
ntrigue
L
ogic
E
njoyment

Then the scores are all added up and divided by 7 to give you an average rating, which can then be translated back into the 5-star rating system. I find that the CAWPILE system provides a more detailed view of the elements I loved and didn’t love, allowing other readers to use the information from my reading experience to best suit their needs.

RatingsStars
Up to 1.10
1.1 – 2.2
2.3 – 4.5☆☆
4.6 – 6.9☆☆☆
7 – 8.9☆☆☆☆
9-10☆☆☆☆☆
The chart to translate the average score to a 5-star rating

That being said I am a big advocate for DNF-ing, life is too short to read books that are not a good fit for you. Therefore you probably won’t see too many books with very low scores throughout the categories. I know my reading tastes pretty well, but I occasionally like to read outside of my comfort zone.