Whether you’re a book blogger, or regular book enthusiast, it’s nice to find someone who shares your taste in books. If you enjoy the same kind of books, you can get into in-depth discussions about them, you can lend each other books you think the other would like (providing you trust them with your babies, of course), and vitally, you can forewarn your reading buddy of books you know they won’t enjoy, so they won’t waste their time with them.
This happened recently, when I read Burnt Paper Sky by Gilly Macmillan. It was a very well written debut novel, but there was a plot twist I knew would majorly piss off a fellow reader friend, Trish @ Between My Lines. I knew this book was on her TBR, so I sent her a message to let her know she should definitely skip it.
While many of us in the community have bookish friendships, occasionally, this relationship goes a step further, and you may find your very own Ratings Twin.
Quite a while ago, Trish and I discovered we are Ratings Twins. Practically every book we’ve both read, we’ve given the same rating to. This became very useful when we checked out each others book hauls and reviews, because we would know which books to pick up immediately, and which to avoid like the plague.
When you’re a book blogger with a considerable amount of unread physical books, ARCS, and eBooks in your collection, time is of the essence. I don’t want to waste time reading a mediocre book, when I could be delving into a delicious 5* read. There have been a few times I’ve checked out Trish’s rating first before deciding what book to read next, or purchasing a new book I don’t know much about.
So, how do you go about finding your Ratings Twin?
For Trish and I, we initially realised our twin-ness simply because we kept writing reviews for the same books, and we were giving them the same ratings. But Goodreads has a unique feature where you can compare your shelves and ratings with people in your friend list. So I thought I’d see how our twin status stacks up statistically.
An 87% similarity across 90 books sounds pretty good to me. Especially considering we have 488 other books in common that one, or the other, hasn’t read or rated yet.
If you know a fellow book blogger, or reader, who has very similar tastes to you, it might be worthwhile seeing if you are rating twins too. Let me know in the comments if you have a ratings twin, and how you found each other!
Confessions of a Book Geek 
This is such a fun concept!! *rushes off to seek ratings twin*
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LOL! Let me know how the search goes!
R xx
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A ratings twin sounds useful, I know a couple of bloggers whose tastes align with mine in certain genres so I always trust their opinions. I didn’t know there was that feature on Goodreads, though! How useful, I feel the need to go try it out now. It is a useful feature to have and they always keep good stuff like that hidden.
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I find it really useful! Especially when tastes are either super similar, or totally opposite! Definitely helps me know what to avoid, and what to rush out and buy! I wish Goodreads would develop even more analytics, surely with Amazon behind them now they have the resources to do that?!
R xx
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Though I haven’t found a ratings twin, I have used the ‘compare books’ feature of Goodreads many times. It is a great way to discover new Goodreads friends with similar reading tastes.
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I can get lost for an hour or so comparing with others! Like I need another way to procrastinate!
R xx
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[…] Rachel explains the idea of a ratings twin and how she found hers […]
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87% is definitely very close 🙂 I don’t think I’ve found my twin yet! But it would be awesome if I did 🙂
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It is indeed! Have you checked out the feature on Goodreads? It’s quite fun to see what you’ve rated in common to your online reader friends!! R xx
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Yeah, I’ve known this feature for years, but I don’t really use it so much, because a lot of times the matching titles will be classics that we all had to read for school xD
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[…] also did a post about Finding Your Ratings Twin, 6 Ways to Make Reading Fun Again, and was proudly a Finalist in the Blog Awards Ireland! I shared […]
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How fun! I never really paid attention to this feature before. It confirmed for me that Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight is my bookish twin. Now I’m having fun looking up other people. For instance, you and I are actually 91% similar! Obviously I have to start paying attention to the books you love. 🙂
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Aw yay! I love finding out the bloggers I love have similar tastes to me! I think Goodreads had the capacity to do so much more, especially with the resources they must have now that Amazon has took them over, but I don’t think it has reached its full potential – though I do enjoy this feature! R xx
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[…] writing overall, because this book has had some rave reviews on Goodreads (even from my Book Rating Twin, Trish, and we usually agree on everything), but for me while it was an enjoyable enough read, it […]
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