Goodreads Adds Half- and Quarter-Star Ratings

Can readers finally give a book three and a half stars on Goodreads? Yes, and three and three-quarters, too. In a post on the Goodreads blog dated October 5, 2026, the company said half-star and quarter-star ratings "are now live," calling the change readers' number one request and the result of "years of reader feedback."

Under the new system, readers can rate books in quarter-star increments from 0.25 to 5.0. Until now, Goodreads ratings were whole stars only.

What changes on a book page

The rating histogram on each book page still shows five bars, so Goodreads rounds fractional ratings to fit them. The company spelled out the rule: ratings ending in .25 and .5 round down, and ratings ending in .75 round up. Its examples are a 3.5, which appears in the 3-star bar, and a 3.75, which appears in the 4-star bar. The 1-star bar includes everything from 0.25 to 1.5.

Applied across the scale, that rule works out like this:

• 1-star bar: 0.25 through 1.5
• 2-star bar: 1.75 through 2.5
• 3-star bar: 2.75 through 3.5
• 4-star bar: 3.75 through 4.5
• 5-star bar: 4.75 and 5.0

Goodreads also said book averages "may shift over time as readers rate with more precision." The company said its reader community "is naturally split on whether to round up or down," so it expects those shifts to be balanced rather than pushing averages consistently higher or lower.

What stays the same

Goodreads listed three things that are not changing:

• Existing whole-star ratings stay exactly as they are unless a reader chooses to update theirs.
• Written reviews are not affected.
• The site's Rating and Review Guidelines remain the same.

Those guidelines already ask members to make "thoughtful use of the full rating scale" and say ratings should reflect a reader's own reading experience. They also list behavior that can lead Goodreads to limit visibility or remove ratings, including rating books without reading them, ratings that "artificially inflate or deflate a book's average rating," and unusual rating patterns that suggest automated or inauthentic activity. The guidelines say Goodreads may temporarily limit ratings and reviews on a book if it detects unusual behavior.

Goodreads also posted a short video on its YouTube channel announcing that "half stars are here."

Who the post was written for

The announcement was addressed to the book business as much as to readers. "We know that ratings matter to authors and publishers," the post said. "They influence how readers discover your books and how you understand your audience." Goodreads said it wanted "to be transparent about what's changing and what's not," and closed by inviting more feature requests from readers, authors, and publishers.

Why it matters for authors

Your average can move without anyone changing their mind. Every new rating can now land between whole numbers, so a book's average may drift as quarter-star ratings build up. Goodreads expects up-rounders and down-rounders to roughly cancel out, but that is a prediction, not a guarantee for any single title. Authors who quote their Goodreads average in marketing copy or ads should check the current number before reusing it.

The histogram is now a rounded view. A reader who gives a book 3.5 stars shows up in the 3-star bar, while a 3.75 shows up in the 4-star bar. Two books with the same bar chart can therefore have slightly different averages. If you track your rating distribution over time, keep in mind that the bars and the average are no longer measured in the same units.

Older ratings stay put. Whole-star ratings already on your books will not change unless the reader edits them, and reviews are untouched.

The rules have not loosened. Goodreads kept its Rating and Review Guidelines as they were. Asking readers to rate a book they have not read, or coordinating ratings to move an average, is still the kind of activity the guidelines say can be removed or hidden. That applies to quarter stars just as it did to whole ones.

Sources

• Goodreads: Readers' #1 Request: Half and Quarter-Star Ratings Are Here (October 5, 2026)
• Goodreads: Rating and Review Guidelines
• Goodreads on YouTube: Half Stars Are Here! (October 2026)