Should you numerically rate books?

No.

Okay wait, there’s an actual description.

Rating things out of some arbitrary number or other has long been the critic’s pastime. In a society with an ever decreasing attention span (you’re not even reading this far are you, ye jammy sod), numbers do what words rebuke: they rate in simple terms.

They quantify where we once spoke of quality. They convince you of an opinion with nary a word. They give value... without all the hassle of actually explaining where it lay.

Is this convenience truly all positive, though? Does the number help, or hinder? Hell, is it even that simple, when a 5 technically means average, but we turn up our noses at anything below a 7? Forget a name, what’s in a number?

In this episode, Rachel attempts to add a few points to Sarim’s infinitesimally low rating of ratings.