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Published by New Modern Arcade
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
‘? ? ? ? ?’ Ian Hislop
‘A fun and fascinating look at one of those things we all do’ Jonathan Ross
‘The history of modern life we didn’t know we wanted’ Giles Coren
The story of how – and why – the world has come to rely on star ratings for almost everything.
The world has come to rely on star ratings for almost everything. From Trustpilot to Google Reviews, eBay to Etsy, from doctors to teachers to politicians to toilets to books and culture, every facet of modern life has been distilled down to an online measure from one to five stars.
In Rate This Book journalist and critic Benji Wilson – who both rates and gets rated as part of his job – looks at how star ratings have become as much a part of modern discourse as language itself. We rate everything, we get rated and a dropped star here or there can make or break products and people. The importance of a five-star rating has seen the system gamed so that, ironically, an emblem of trust can no longer be trusted. Reviews are now used as both bait and blackmail.
But how did we get here? How has the pandemic and a corresponding lack of human connection increased our reliance on a number between one and five for our understanding of the world? And what has this reliance on something so reductive done to our ability to assess things for ourselves?
‘A fun and fascinating look at one of those things we all do’ Jonathan Ross
‘The history of modern life we didn’t know we wanted’ Giles Coren
The story of how – and why – the world has come to rely on star ratings for almost everything.
The world has come to rely on star ratings for almost everything. From Trustpilot to Google Reviews, eBay to Etsy, from doctors to teachers to politicians to toilets to books and culture, every facet of modern life has been distilled down to an online measure from one to five stars.
In Rate This Book journalist and critic Benji Wilson – who both rates and gets rated as part of his job – looks at how star ratings have become as much a part of modern discourse as language itself. We rate everything, we get rated and a dropped star here or there can make or break products and people. The importance of a five-star rating has seen the system gamed so that, ironically, an emblem of trust can no longer be trusted. Reviews are now used as both bait and blackmail.
But how did we get here? How has the pandemic and a corresponding lack of human connection increased our reliance on a number between one and five for our understanding of the world? And what has this reliance on something so reductive done to our ability to assess things for ourselves?
Product Details
- Publisher: New Modern Arcade (July 2, 2026)
- Length: 304 pages
- ISBN13: 9781917923675
Raves and Reviews
“A fun and fascinating look at one of those things we all do, but don’t necessarily know why. I’d always wondered why and how we’d settled on stars – and why just five of them. The answer’s inside. Benji also shares some of the dirty dealings when the impeccable integrity of experts rubs up against the need to keep sponsors and advertisers sweet”
– Jonathan Ross
“A hilarious love/hate letter to the tyranny of star ratings and the havoc they have played with the world as we knew it. Genuinely fascinating, laugh-out-loud funny and often completely bonkers. I’d give Benji Wilson five stars for wit, five stars for erudition and five stars for giving us the history of modern life we didn’t know we wanted”
– Giles Coren
“It's astonishing how much star ratings and likes have taken over our lives – and Benji Wilson's witty, excellent book explains how and why that happened. Five out of five stars!”
– Maureen Ryan, Vanity Fair
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